Rick & Carol's Journey (DL)

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This installment covers Monday (August 13) through Thursday (August 16).

On Monday, we drove west from Minot to the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, where we visited the Confluence Interpretive Center, Fort Buford, and Fort Union. Fort Buford was a military post which at its height housed 6 companies of men. Only one or two original buildings remain, including the restored base commander’s quarters which serves as a museum. This is the building (shown below) in which Sitting Bull surrendered. Nearby Fort Union was an American Fur Company trading post (shown below). American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor and was later joined by McKenzie of the North West Company after the latter was absorbed by the Hudson Bay Company. The post was large and elaborate, and dealt with both independent white fur traders and with a number of Indian tribes.





We then turned south toward the North Dakota Badlands and the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. En route we stopped in Alexander, ND, at the “Lewis and Clark Trail Museum,” so-named because it is on the route of the expedition, not because it features Lewis and Clark. This turned out to be a nice local museum in a 3-story 1920s vintage school house with attached gymnasium. The museum included a lot of local artifacts organized in separate rooms by subject area. One room consisted of a number of display cases, purchased by local families for $100 each, containing family memorabilia (shown below).



We spent the night in the national park. In the early evening we drove the 14 mile road into the park. We got some good views of the badlands and the Little Missouri River, saw a couple of mule deer, and encountered a small herd of buffalo crossing the road.

Since check-out time is noon, on Tuesday morning we drove the park road again. We saw a lot of buffalo, starting with a herd that was making its way through the RV park just as we prepared to leave (shown below). We then encountered three more herds along the drive.



Our RV trip on Tuesday was a short drive south out of the badlands, through hilly ranching country, a little flat farming country, and back into more badlands just outside Medora. On Tuesday evening we went to the Medora Musical. The performance takes place in an open-air amphitheater that goes sharply down the side of one of the badlands hills. In addition to performance on the stage, some action takes place behind the stage on a facing hill. The song and dance was high energy, some country, some patriotic, and some N.D. championship yodeling. All-in-all a unique and entertaining show.

We were in Medora again on Wednesday. In the morning we toured the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There are several prairie dog towns along the route, and the animals were out in force (shown below). We walked the ridge trail, which took us to a high spot with a 360 degree view of the badlands landscape – nice to look at but impossible to get a good photograph. We also walked the coal fire trail, which took us across land under which a 12’ thick coal vein burned between 1951 and 1977. Some of the artifacts are a depression where the overburden sank, and what the locals call “scoria,” a red brick like substance on the hilltops that was produced when the clay and earth on the surface was heated by the burning coal below (shown below). In this area we saw our only buffalo of the day, quietly grazing alongside the trail, and got Carol’s picture with the buffalo in the background (shown below).







In the afternoon we saw a 45 minute one-act play entitled “Bully.” This was a monologue by a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator who told stories that reflected Roosevelt’s philosophy and the highpoints of his adult life. It was an interesting way to get a mini-history lesson. Next we toured the Chateau De Mores, the summer house built by a French Marquis who came to Medora in what was ultimately an unsuccessful attempt to operate a slaughterhouse (shown below). Though the family returned to France after a few years, the family hired caretakers for the next 50 years, who maintained the property to some extent until it was gifted to the state in the 1930s and rehabilitated by the CCC.

Thursday was a repositioning day. We drove the 221 miles from Medora to Deadwood, gaining about 2500 feet of altitude in the process. Until we got near Deadwood, most of the drive was through high plains. At one point, US-85 ran due south in a straight line without a town for about 40 miles – and we could see distant hills on the road 10 miles away. After arriving in Deadwood we shopped, ran errands, and cleaned the RV.