Greetings from North Dakota - let me know by email response if you've ever been to North Dakota before. We came one here once in 2013 from the Black Hills in South Dakota so we could say we'd been in the state. This time we spent 3 nights here.
We left Shelby, Montana on Thursday, August 17 and drove to Williston, North Dakota. That's 7 hours of driving time - almost entirely flat and surrounded by wheat fields with many farmers out running huge combines across their fields It's an amazing operation.
As we got into North Dakota, we started to see a lot more oil production (see picture on left which combines wheat fields with oil pumps). Williston, ND was the epicenter of the North Dakota oil boom that peaked about 10 years ago with the advent of fracking. Williston's population went from 12,000 in 2010 to 27,000 today with all the accompanying problems associated with such dramatic growth. Things have settled down now in Williston and we enjoyed our brief stay.
On Friday, August 18 we drove from Williston to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). There are two sections of TRNP, and we visited the North Unit first. Most visitors to TRNP go to the South Unit which is right along I-94 so we found the North Unit uncrowded, beautiful and very hot (high of 100). The North Unit is essentially a valley cut by the Little Missouri River which is a wild (undammed) river. The Little Missouri has cut beautiful rock formations over time in the park.
This place is reminiscent of Badlands NP in South Dakota. On the left, you can see Melinda along one formation that we visited. There is a 14 mile road through the park with many stops to see the great views and the bison (from a distance). Given the heat, we chose not to do any lengthy hikes. From the park, we then headed to Dickinson, ND to spend the night.
You might be wondering why this national park is named after Teddy Roosevelt (it's the only national park named after a person). In the 1880's, TR lived in this area of North Dakota, and it's a big part of his own story. In addition, TR is widely known for his conservation work as president, creating five new national parks, 18 national monuments and 150 national forests.
On Saturday, August 19 we drove from Dickinson to the South Unit of TRNP (see Melinda at the entrance sign on the right). This is the larger and more popular section of the park off I-94. The topography of the South Unit is similar to the North Unit so we had great views of hoodoos, gullies and striated hills as we drove about 40 miles through the park. We stopped off for a few short hikes as well, and we were blessed with much better weather with the temperatures in the mid-70's and a nice breeze.
The big difference for us is that we were able to see some wildlife in the South Unit up close and personal. We saw a number of bison from a distance, but after a couple of hours we rounded a curve and there were bison on both sides of the road. We pulled over right in front of the bison pictured on the right (taken by Melinda from the passenger seat). Eventually the bison on the right crossed the road as about 10 cars sat and watched in awe (and, unlike in Yellowstone, no one got out of the car and tried to take a selfie with a bison). We've been this close to bison a couple of times before in Custer State Park in South Dakota and in Yellowstone, but it never gets old.
The South Unit of TRNP also has wild horses and we saw them fairly close range a couple of times. We got to see some of the social dynamics of the horses when a single horse came near to the herd pictured on the right as if to join up, but he got some dirty looks from the herd and eventually turned around and left.
One oddity of our visit in North Dakota was constantly trying to figure out what time it was. When we drove out of Montana into North Dakota we went from Mountain to Central time. When we drove out of the North Unit of TRNP and headed south to Dickinson the time changed back to Mountain (as it was for our visit to the South Unit). When we drove east from the South Unit to Bismarck, the time changed back to Central. So, each night in North Dakota brought about a change in Time Zone - not as bad a passing the International Date Line going east, but still confusing to our phones and watches.
We are spending Saturday evening in Bismarck and on Sunday we head for Minnesota and eventually a Twins game.
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