SUSAN: We woke up at 5 am and it was 49 degrees!! We wanted to get an early start so I was very proud of us that we were out of the hotel 7:15 am. It was 71 miles from our hotel to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, north unit so getting out early was imperative. It was pretty interesting landscape on the drive north. It started to change to have more hills and bumps. There were several oil dirks and we saw a natural gas flame.
JAMES: The highway we took to get there was completely under construction. They are adding two lanes (so it’s two lanes in each direction), to the existing highway. There is nothing up in that area, just a couple of very small towns but the area is abuzz with oil drilling. There are a million pickup trucks and workers coming and going and a lot of big semis rolling through. The scale of the highway expansion is mind blowing, literally more pieces of heavy machinery than I have ever seen in one place. So for about 40 miles, the whole stretch is considered a construction zone and that means a 40 mph speed limit. So it felt like it took forever to get there.
We found out online that there as a Park Ranger-let native plant hike scheduled at 10 am. We thought we were an hour ahead of time until we reached the entrance to the park and past through the time zone and back to Central Time. Now we had 10 minutes to make the hike! So we hit the road determined to make it in time. Unfortunately everybody else in the park was lolly-gagging, taking their sweet time driving. We made it a few minutes late but, as we were the only ones who showed up for the hike, we were in time.
SUSAN: Park Ranger Andrew walked us along Caplock Coulee Nature Trail and showed us different flowers like the Prairie Rose vs. the Woods Rose and discussed how invasive species like yellow sweet clover are impacting the park and basically the ecosystem and how it's negatively impacting the various animals.
JAMES: The hour long tour was a native plant indoctrination and hike along the Ridgeline Trail overlooking the massive chasms and river bed of the Little Missouri River. We learned a lot. We were introduced to aromatic sumac, Prairie Rose, Wood Rose, two kinds of flax, a kind of pea, Vetch and a wild invasive Yellow Sweet Clover. We also found out that Kentucky Bluegrass, which makes up the prize lawns of suburbanites everywhere is also invasive. The only drawback was the intense high winds that blew non-stop during our entire tour. The wind must have had gusts between 50 and 60 mph.
When our tour was over, we drove to the very end of the park road to check out Sperati Point, supposedly the best view of the park. It was lunch time so we wanted to eat. There were picnic tables, but the wind was blowing so hard that we had to eat in the car. Afterwards we headed for the point. It was a beautiful hike through green grasslands for about a mile.
The hiking trail is a fairly narrow rut in the grass. It is well worn because it is the same trail that the buffalo use. But the wind was blowing so hard that when I lifted my foot I was actually blowing sideways causing me to miss the rut. It was challenging. The view at the point was outstanding. Definitely worth the hike.
SUSAN: The hike at Sperati point was amazing -- beautiful vistas and scenery, however, the wind was crazy and sometimes it felt like it was gonna knock you over.
We drove back through the park via the scenic drive, which was the only way to enter and exit the park. We stopped at the visitor center to get a stamp for my National Park Passport and just as we were about to leave, it started pouring down rain heavily. A strange side note, Teddy Roosevelt National Park no longer sells merchandise. Apparently, they lost their partnership with their vendor. But I managed to get a stamp..
JAMES: We started the long drive back with the intention of driving down the Enchanted Highway. What is the Enchanted Highway? Our only clue was an eye catching giant sculpture right off the interstate that advertised the highway. It turns out that a former school teacher made a whole series of giant sculptures along a 32 mile stretch of a state highway. He created it to be a tourist attraction and built the Enchanted Hotel and restaurant to capitalize on his concept. We started down the highway looking for the first sculpture. We were very tired and anxious to see the sculpture and then get back to our hotel. We drove and drove until we finally came across the first one, a humongous sculpture of a couple of deer. Aware that at this pace we might be on this road for hours, we decided to just take in the first three sculptures and then head back to Dickinson. They were very cool. It is amazing to contemplate the scale and effort that it must have taken to put these together. Got a ton of great pictures.
We returned to the hotel we cleaned up and then went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. Good food and huge margaritas.
Day 2 -- 249.5 miles today