Medora Part 2

August 20th and 21st.

I must apologize for editing mistakes because we are going to try and post close to “real time” as opposed to writing, then re-reading the blog for a couple days before posting. This morning I noticed on our previous post I had us leaving on the 19th instead of the 18th.

This is the scene we woke up to on Monday morning the 20th. Kind of nice for $5 at night (with a senior pass).



Sandy and I are getting suited up for a trip to the North Unit and then north a little further, then west so we can come down the west side of the Park and National Grasslands. We ended up putting on about 230 miles.





The Visitor Center has some Roosevelt memorabilia plus an interesting 17 minute film.





This is a Fracking (a somewhat controversial method of oil drilling) site north of Belfield, ND. We probably saw 20 of these in the 67 miles from Belfield to Watford City.



The North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park is 52 miles north of I-94. With all the road damage in the park from the spring rains we were only able to drive 7 of the 15 miles into the park.



Here is the Little Missouri River. The water in the river is more like thin mud than water. Roosevelt’s ranch, Elkhorn Ranch was along this river and about 2/3’s up from Medora to the north unit. Elkhorn Ranch is on a back road that I did not want to take the trike on and only the foundation ruins are left.











After going through the park we continued north to Watford City before turning west. Here you can really start to see the buildup of people with the temporary housing and new business going up due to the oil boom around Williston, ND.About all you see around here are pick-up trucks, water and oil tankers. Most of the housing is small camper trailers with skirts around the foundations. I think you might be able to buy a cheap camper in a few years after the boom busts.





There are also a lot of small parks with just a few trailers parked.



It seemed that everyone was adding on more units for rent.



A new truck stop under construction.



I wonder how long this will last as the last oil boom in the 80’s only made it about 5 years.

Today, Tuesday 8-21, we worked our way west taking I-40 56 miles to Glendive, MT. There, I’ve had my fill of freeways for the month, too bad we’ll probably have to get on them all too soon. Out of Glendive we picked up MT 200 and continued west to Lewiston, MT where we are spending the night.

 

We sure saw lots of hay bales and grain fields.

 

Until next time,

Dave and Sandy