Theodore Roosevelt National Park

9/23

One of our camp neighbors in Oregon told us about Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We didn't even know there WAS a T.R. National Park.  As we were investigating where to go after the solar install, we found T.R was an easy day's drive.  We also discovered they were having a special event called Dakota Nights, a weekend long Astronomy festival.  That sealed the deal and we made reservations.

Most National Parks don't have utilities in their campgrounds and that's the case at T.R.  Now that we have solar, we can start taking advantage of these type of campgrounds.

We spent the first night after the solar install in a full service campground near Belle Fourche, SD  to drain our tanks, top off our fresh water and do laundry, we'd been off grid for the past 6 days.

The drive north on US-85 from Belle Fourche, SD was Borrrrrrring!  It was a more or less straight road  heading due north for about 200 miles. The terrain was more of the same - rolling hills, sparsely populated with trees or people.

Oh, did I mention it was overcast with intermittent rain.  The forecast was more of the same for the next 2 days, a true test for the new solar system.

T.R. National Park is just outside of Medora, ND.  Medora is a picturesque little town dating back to 1883.  It's been transformed from a working town to a tourist town without losing much of it's charm.  Mind you, we were there at the end of the season so it might lose some of that perceived charm in the middle of summer.

Some interesting architecture.

The Cottonwood campground is 5 miles from the entrance to the park along a windy road through the North Dakota "Badlands" (a.k.a. Painted Canyon).  Again, we didn't know there WAS a North Dakota Badlands!  When making the reservation, Joan picked the biggest site available.  It was a self serve campground (at this time of the year) so we stopped to consult a campground map to find our site.  Joan pointed to what appeared to be a day use parking area and said that's it!  What's it, I said.  That's our campsite!

There were two campsites that were wide spots in the asphalt road running through the campground.  There's a walk leading to the amphitheater and to the left of that, day use parking.  To the right, campsites.  Our site wasn't very private but with all the rain, the idea of not stepping out into mud was very appealing.

There were events scheduled at the amphitheater for Friday night, but with the rain, it was moved to the little theater in Madora. The Park staff pulled out all the stops, scrambling to decorate the theater with banners of stars, serving free cookies and refreshments, even popcorn with the later movie.

9/24

Saturday's weather wasn't any better, drizzly rain and cold.

There were lots of  Astronomy related attractions in the visitors center along with the history about the life and times or T. R.

Joan holding Moon rocks!

The Discovery Dome Theater was an inflatable dome that projected short movies on the roof of the dome.  We'd just lay on the floor and look up.

Buffalo on the wall celebrating the 100th
anniversary of the National Park Service.

And then there's all the exhibits about T.R.

The Saturday night speaker was Dr. Joe Shaw.  His topic, "Chasing the Midlatitude Aurora Borealis", discussed opportunities available for viewing the Aurora in places other than the Arctic, like North Dakota and Minnesota, where he was from.

After the presentation, there was a movie.  Actually, is was a PBS Nova episode about the Mars rover. Like I said, the staff did a great job pulling together a good nights entertainment on short notice.

9/25
Fiiiiiinally! the weather broke and we had a nice sunny day.

The highlight of the day was the solar viewing with special telescopes.

There were two kinds of filters used.  One would let you see the Solar Prominence (a bright feature extending outward from the suns surface).  What we could see looked like fuzz on the edge of the suns disk.

The other filter would let you see Sun Spots.  I tried the take a picture by holding the camera lens up to the eye piece of the telescope.  While we did see some very small spots, they didn't come out in the picture.

The good weather also let us tour some of the outside exhibits, like T. R.'s cabin.

The final presentation by Dr. Paul Barnhart on "The Importance of Darkness" was finally held at the amphitheater. While it was only a few steps from our campsite, it was a chilly evening and  I found myself remembering the warm theater with cookies and popcorn.

The clear evening also allow the only night of star gazing hosted by a local Astronomy club.

9/26

The Festival was over and we had a great time in spite of the weather. However, we hadn't seen anything of the park outside of the campground, the visitors center and the 5 mile drive between the two.  So, we decided to stay another day and tour the 36 mile Scenic Loop Drive.  Here's some pictures.

Our campsite on a much nicer day.

Notice the artist painting this beautiful scene.

We stopped for lunch at this beautiful overlook.

9/27

We left T. R. National Park on another beautiful day with fond memories of the park, the park staff, the town of Medora, and the North Dakota Badlands that T.R. loved so much.

Driving down US-85, going south this time, was still a boring drive.  At least this time we had blue skies to look at.

Coming next, Sturgis SD.