I have SO loved driving through North Dakota! I was not prepared for how gorgeous it is, and was half-way dreading the long drive. I couldn't stop gawking at the colorful, undulating landscapes on either side of the interstate. Fields of greens, golds, lavendars, amber, with sky dramas exploding then melting on one side of the highway to the other. The little towns along Interstate 94 are clean, upbeat and cared for. The folks are friendly. The weather is PERFECT! We're down to the high 70's by day and a chilly mid-50's at night. Oh how I'm relaxing into that.
I found a wonderful bike/walking trail today, just outside Bismark, ND. It meandered along a golf course for awhile, then took off through a meadow along a creek. We walked for about an hour and a half, then back on the road again. I wanted to make it to Medora (the little town at the entrance of Theodore Roosevelt National Park) before dark and I did! These "Badlands" of North Dakota are stupendously beautiful. The striated soil is charged with color and texture, and the rainy summer has certainly greened things up to a dazzling level. Not to mention the wildflowers!
We pulled into a perfect campground just on the outskirts of Medora, where Roosevelt had a cabin. I hope to visit it tomorrow and take pictures of the town. The Little Missouri River runs right along the campground, which is shaded by the ubiquitous cottonwood trees (thank God!), which I adore. They remind me of Corvallis, along the Willamette.
I DID enjoy a BBQ'd dinner tonight, though it was a difficult process due to the broken grill at my site and my marginal talent for grilling. Then I took myself on a date for live theater: A real Wild West, Frolic'n Cowboy, live musical, set in an amphitheater with the grand Badlands as the backdrop. The real scene stealers were the antlered elk grazing in the hills just behind the theater. The musical was cute, but a bit too corny, even for me. I left at intermission, having endured/enjoyed the cast's marginal talent for music, overacting and dance long enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment