North Dakota - Theodore Roosevelt National Park

A few days ago when I was making sure we would have accommodation booked around North and South Dakota in the days leading up to the Sturgis Rally, I had tried to find a motel close to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (which is also only a few hours from Sturgis). Unfortunately everything was booked out, so instead I booked two nights in Bismarck with the intention of doing a return day trip to the National Park (about 2 hours riding time away).

We left Bismark around 8:30am and headed west on Interstate 94. It was only about half an hour down the road when the sky looked very black. We could see lightening in the distance. It started to rain, but neither of us wanted to stop and put on wet weather gear. There seemed to be blue sky not far up the road and on a bike you tend to dry out pretty quick with the warm wind. I estimated the lightening was about 10 miles away on either side of the interstate. It was like we had a narrow corrider that the highway snaked through with the bad weather to the north and south of us. Fortunately we managed to sneak through without encountering any lightening strikes and the sky soon cleared up with just some intermittant light showers as we made our way to Medora (the gateway to the South Unit of the National Park).

The National Park was named in honour of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt came to the North Dakota Badlands in 1883. He became interested in the cattle business there and established two open ranges 'Maltese Cross' with some business partners and his own 'Elkhorn'. He became increasingly concerned with conservation and when he became President (1901) he established 5 National Parks, 51 wildlife refuges and set aside land as national forests.

We rode around a 36 mile scenic loop road where you can get up close to much of the National Park's wildlife such as; Bison, Deer, Wild Horses and Praire Dogs. The landscape is quite unique - a mix of barren rock, praire grassland and tussock covered outcrops. It was fantastic to see Bison in the wild. It was still raining a little when we rode through, which probably helped our experience as the cooler weather tends to bring the wildlife out (according to a Medora local we spoke to). A bit later in the day, they would tend to be sheltering from the heat.

We spent a good hour and a half riding through the park stopping frequently to take some great photos. The day was getting very hot and humid, so after a cold drink in Medora and a browse around the stores, we blatted back to Bismarck down the interstate, battling some hot, strong winds all the way.