This morning we bid a sad goodby to the Spearfish Canyon Lodge. We really liked that place and will miss the spectacular views. It was 53 degrees when we left, but the forecast was for the mid 80's, and sure enough in the first hour, the temperature rose over 20 degrees. We were headed to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota. Since it was on our way, I did get to begin the morning with one last ride up the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Highway US-14A before breakfast at McDonald's in Spearfish. Never want to miss that opportunity!
     Except for the last 15 miles on I-94W, the rest of the trip was on US-85N . If you look at a map of the path of US-85N from Spearfish, SD to Medora, ND you will notice that except for a little bend around Bowman, SD it is almost perfectly straight. And that's just what it is, flat and straight with nothing but prairie on both sides of the road. There might be a hint of a mountain in the distance, but nothing, nothing, nothing everywhere else. Even the cattle ranches disappeared after a while, replaced with sheep ranches, and as we headed further north even the sheep ranches disappeared, replaced with nothing. There was one bright spot just north of Bowman, SD where someone had a Buffalo ranch. That was cool to see. As we approached within just a few miles of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we began to try to find signs of changing landscape, but nothing. Just more and more prairie land.
     Then, all of a sudden when we reached the park exit on I-94W, the huge formations of the park just seemed to appear out of nowhere. There is a small little tourist town called Medora just outside the Visitors Center .   There is some really good hiking in the area, including a 96 mile long one that was just a little to much for us. The park is laid out as a basic 36 mile paved loop road that starts and ends near the Visitors Center. So after watching the obligatory 20 minute movie and having a little chat with the ranger, we set out to follow the loop on the bike, stop at the scenic overlooks, and do a little short hiking on a couple of the trails near the loop road.
     There were 3 or 4 Prairie Dog Towns, so of course we had to stop at those too. The first hike was just a scenic overview of the town, but the second was called the Wind Canyon Trail, and it was great. Just a little too near the cliffs in some spots which made me a little nervous with my fear of heights. There was just that one spot, where you had to hike down a steep slope to the cliff edge and then make a left to follow along the edge. If you slip coming down the slope, there wasn't much room to recover before going over. We just took it slow and all went fine . Jody doesn't have a fear of heights, so none of this phased her at all. Though there was that one time when she was trying to run and swat away a bee and she was getting closer to the edge without realizing it. I yelled before she got too close, and she was a little more careful afterwards even if it was just to keep me from being nervous.
     The Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Badlands will invariably be compared to the Badlands National Park in the South Dakota Badlands and there are some similarities to the formations. But the Roosevelt park is much greener, as there is much more grass and vegetation. The Roosevelt park is also much bigger, though we only visited the southern park, there is also a northern park that we didn't get to. Roosevelt is also much less visited than Badlands, so the crowds are smaller and the park feels a lot more untouched. We liked both parks, each for different reasons.
      The one thing the ranger didn't really stress was the wildlife . As we came around the corner from one of the formations, there was a herd of buffalo just grazing away at the side of the road. We stopped the bike, got off and one of the buffalo walked by, within inches of the bike. Jody was a bit afraid, as buffalo tend to be grumpy and unpredictable. I was too busy being in awe and trying to get some good pictures to realize that we might actually be in danger. But nothing bad happened, and we had a great experience and got some great pictures.
     I little while later, as we came around another corner, we ran into a group of wild horses grazing at the side of the road. The horses are much less unpredictable, and we got some good pictures of them as we continued on our way. We saw a few other horses and buffalo further away as we continued our way around loop road.
     One of the things I noticed about the 36 mile loop road is that even though the road was in great shape, it was much more up and down and twistier than the road at Badlands with much less guard rails near the edges . The other thing is that they didn't mark the curves. I don't know if they were just trying to keep from spoiling the scenery with signage, but I didn't realize how much I typically depend on those little arrow signs to anticipate the road direction. I certainly had to pay much closer attention as I rode to know where the road was going next.
     We finished with the park, did a little shopping in Medora, and headed east to the hotel in Dickinson. It was a more traditional Comfort Inn tonight, and back to the free breakfast in the morning. Around Me showed that Dickinson was certainly a modern metropolis with almost every fast food and chain restaurant within a mile of the hotel. We tried to sample the local cuisine at a place called Sanford's Grub & Pub, but the Garmin was having a hell of a time finding the correct address. In the end we were tired and hungry and headed for the Applebee's across the street from the hotel. It was like eating Orlando food again.
     Tomorrow we heading back to South Dakota for three nights in Keystone, SD right outside Mount Rushmore. The weather has been warming up, with most of this afternoon in the mid 80's.   There is some chance of rain tomorrow as we make our way back through the nothingness of US-85S.

293.7 miles today
4095.6 miles total

8.504 gallons today
104.34 gallons total