The Dakotas

I've reached Great Falls, Montana, my destination for the night. I got here early this afternoon and am trying to clean up, rest, and regroup before 5 straight nights of camping in Glacier National Park. I'll be one dirty and smelly man, probably best I'm doing this portion alone. Today was spent driving through northcentral Montana on a 2 lane state highway. It was quite an experience. Outside of Alaska, it is probably the most remote place I have ever been. I probably drove 100 miles at one point without even seeing an intersecting road. This is where the real ranchers and farmers are. I don't know how they do it, but I'm glad somebody out there is. Middle of nowhere =

Last blog post I mentioned I had been rejected at the gates of Mount Rushmore on the night of July 4th. Not willing to be turned down that easily, I went right back the very next morning. And they let me in this time! If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. It was fun reliving the historical lessons and childhood visit that I remember from long ago. My family went there when I was around 7 or 8 years old. 20 years later, it still looked the same, but still cool to see with grown-up eyes. Tennessee was well-represented...

I'll also add this photo because it comes with a funny story:

The immature part of me laughed internally as I thought, "here are 4 of our most dignified and respected presidents, and as long as this sculpture exists, we can see up their noses." No more than 10 seconds later, I overhear a little girl of 6 or 7 years say "look Mom, I can see up George Washington's nose!" I wanted to high-five her...because we laugh at the same things. So what if she is 6.

From Rushmore, I decided to head north. Somewhere in North Dakota. It was actually a tough decision as the Black Hills are a beautiful area and the old western town of Deadwood was not far away. I knew I could have plenty of fun here for another day or two. Plus, I hadn't really decided for sure exactly where in North Dakota I was going to go. When I was at Rushmore, I asked someone to take my picture (one of the difficulties of being a solo traveler). I got to talking to the guy and turned out he was a North Dakotan. I told him I was thinking of heading there and he said "go to Medora, it's interesting". He didn't seem like he had anything to gain from whether or not I had a good time, so I figured there must be something to it. So I left Rushmore and started driving towards Medora.
Actually, this might sound prideful but its honest - a lot of the reason I decided to go to ND is because no one in my family had been there. I'm the first Fraser to set foot on North Dakota soil. I'm a modern day Christopher Columbus. 

Once I got into North Dakota, I really started second-guessing myself. Here's what it looked like:

  

I couldn't believe that I had left the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota to drive straight into this. Was it too late to still turn back? Later, I quit second-guessing myself and "knew" I had made the wrong decision. Right about when this happened...

It was like the storm and I were racing to the same spot. Both of us heading north.

This is what I was about to drive into. No fun.

It turned out to be the worst storm I have ever driven through. Life lesson learned at 28: a storm on the prairie is NOT something to be taken lightly. The crosswinds felt like gigantic fingers flicking my car around and the rain came down so hard that the fastest setting on my wipers couldn't even keep the water from completely covering my windshield in between swipes. For some reason, I kept driving though. Worst case scenario, it continues storming and I stay in a dumpy hotel in the middle of North Dakota. It's been on my bucket list, so why not go ahead and cross it off (kidding). Best case scenario, I see something really cool.
Well turns out best case scenario happens. I ended up hitting I-94 and saw a few glimpses of blue sky and signs for Theodore Roosevelt National Park. He was one of my favorite presidents since he established the National Park system (I'm kind of a national park geek). I headed that direction, and then ended up getting the last camping spot in the entire campground. Fortune or blessing?
Insert life analogy here. Haha, I won't get too deep on that. But just as its true with most things, sometimes you have to keep driving through awful weather and trust the Compass to steer you to fair skies. In this particular instance, it took 2 hours to reach blue skies. Sometimes its 2 years. Sometimes 2 decades. As Joe Dirt would say, "keep on keepin on".

Once into Teddy Roosevelt NP, I got to see some awesome things. I had been to South Dakota's Badlands as a kid, but have never visited the North Dakota Badlands. They are different from down south. There is much more green and trees. The southern version only has desert. The north has a much greater variety.

This picture brings me to my favorite part of the last 2 days. I started out Saturday morning driving the scenic loop around the park to get a feel for what I might want to do in the afternoon. Within the first few miles, I came across a field next to the Little Missouri River full of bison. After watching for a little while, I went up to a point above a horseshoe in the river (this viewpoint became my favorite part of the park - bison watching and a sunset later). Then unexpectedly, the bison started migrating across the river, then over the peninsula in the horseshoe, then across the other side of the river. It was awesome to watch.

Moms leading their kids

Going across the peninsula

Crossing the other side of the horseshoe

It was a pretty cool process to watch unfold. Just sitting there watching this happen and listening to their grunts and noises fascinated me. I'm not typically really interested in animals, but this really caught my attention.
I recognized this point would be great to watch the sunset since it faced west and is on a bluff over the river, so I came back around 8:00 to watch. This was also another fascinating process.

Proof I did this

And a panorama of the horsehoe (one of the many reasons I love iPhones):

Thank you to anyone who offered up any prayers for my aching back. This specific pain has happened maybe a handful of times over the past few years and it has always taken at least a week of significant stretching and other efforts before it began to loosen up. Miraculously, within 2 days I'm basically back to 100%, and I've not even stretched very much either of these days. Should be good to go for Glacier.