North Dakota Badlands & TRNP

Well Medora is the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park & the North Dakota Badlands.  Once we were settled into our campsite, we made sure our batteries were fully charged.  Though this was a true campground there were no hookups of any kind, so were we’re allowed to use our generator from 8am to 8pm but needed to operate on batteries overnight.

Once charged we headed off to explore the park.  There were beautiful views everywhere.  We saw a bunch of prairie dog towns and a couple of herds of wild horses.  We found a couple of walking trails and took some hikes and on one hike watched a big herd of bison.

The first overnight was our first true test of our new lithium batteries.  Since we were gone most of the day, we didn’t quite top them off at 100% so we started the night at around 80%.  Running our residential refrigerator and our CPAPS & lights all night didn’t hurt us too much.  We woke up with 30% left.  (the nice thing about lithium compared to our old flooded batteries is though we are still at the same capacity 400-amp hours, with flooded you can’t drain them past 50% without damaging them.  Lithium you can drain down to zero with no damage).  So, cranked on the generator to charge for awhile during breakfast & the start of the morning.

On day two we decided to go into Medora & go grocery shopping.  BUT, no grocery stores.  WTH?  So, we had to hop on the interstate and drive 25 miles to the next town to shop.  We made sure we were well stocked.

Stopped in Medora for a competitive game of miniature golf then back into the park. We grilled a real nice dinner then waited for dark.  Inside the park is a RVing couple we met in Shawnee, OK at a rally.  They are astronomy enthusiasts. www.geoastrorv.com  They are set up in the park for the summer and get out their telescopes for tourists.  We got there around 9pm with about a dozen other campers.  They had two really nice and really big telescopes.  They first gave us all a lesson in finding the stars, galaxies, constellations, & planets.  Then we went back & forth between the scopes as they moved them from planets to the galaxies.  We were under strict light control. NONE!!  So, the view of the sky was unbelievable.  The Milky Way was so bright & close it was like we could reach up & touch it.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures because our cell phones would ruin our night vision.  But at the time we couldn’t care less…….

After a late night we slept in, I’m getting better at this…  We headed out for a hike to the Petrified Forest in the back country.  We had a 45 minute drive down dirt roads past all the oil fields & cattle ranches, deep into the park then an hour hike to the trees.  Now they weren’t very big, but we knew that going in, but the hike & scenery was gorgeous, the weather perfect & cool.  A great day overall.

While there we figured out how the trees died.  They were scared to death,,,,  get it they were petrified!!!!

The next day we hit Medora again, touring the Chateau de Mores, the original house of the Marquis who name the town.  That night we did the pitchfork steak dinner and the “Medora Musical” a tribute to Teddy Roosevelt and the origins of the town of Medora.  Even some elk showed up for the show.

We had a great time.  On the way back the herd of Bison were right at the entrance to the campsite so we had to slowly negotiate our way in.

The next afternoon, just before sunset the herd was IN the campground milling around the campsites.  All the tent campers were all huddled in their cars & vans.  We figured we were safe in CC, even thought they didn’t get that close.

Our last day there we went to a couple of one man plays in Medora. The first one was about the man who saved Medora ,Harold Schafer. He had the insight to turn the old and slowly dying town into a old west town. With shopping, dining and family friendly entertainment, to include the musical. That afternoon we saw a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, he was really good. It felt like we were actually listening to Teddy tell stories about his past. A day well spent, Plus Hunter won the prize for being the youngest person in the theater, a Teddy Bear!!

Next day we are heading east!