Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota

Teddy Roosevelt is fast becoming one of our favourite American presidents. Not only was he instrumental in the development of several US national parks and national monuments, plus the creation of government departments for the national forests and wildlife refuges, but he also owned an awesome ranch in the badland wilds of North Dakota. He spent some time working cattle on this ranch when he was a young man in an effort to toughen himself up and loose his New York pretty boy image. This ranch has now been made into a national park itself, aptly named, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in honor of the big man.

These badlands are bad lands to be sure, but they are not as dramatic as the Badlands, which we described in an earlier blog entry. Instead of whites and pinks, these badlands are more green, yellow and rust. This national park is made up of two units, north and south. We camped the night in the southern section not far from the town of Medora. Medora is the home of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame and I really, really wish we visited that, but alas it was closed by the time we reached town. Next time.

The badlands landscape of the southern part of this park is stark and gentle at once. Rolling buttes mix with deep crevices and grassland prairies. Our campsite was magnificent, perched on the edge of the Little Missouri River. It was the most scenic spot we'd had since Acheray in Algonquin. It was a shame that we were passing through, as we both felt that we could have spent a week here, hiking and reading our books by the banks of the Little Missouri River. Perhaps we might have even taken a horse ride through the prairie. Nonetheless the tug of Glacier National Park won out and we headed off along Highway 2 for northern Montana the next morning.