Theodore Roosevelt
We had never heard of Theodore Roosevelt National Park until friends saw our Epic Road Trip route and recommended it. We were happy to have a special place to explore for our first time visiting North Dakota.
TRNP is relatively new, achieving national park status in 1978. It's a fascinating mix of unusual geology and abundant wildlife. And it's the only national park that is a memorial to a person. We already knew that Teddy Roosevelt played a huge role in expanding the National Parks. At TRNP, we learned how his experiences in North Dakota toughened him and made him into the President he would later be.
The dominant geologic feature in TRNP is the Badlands. We had seen the Badlands many years ago in South Dakota. These Little Missouri Badlands were similarly formed through erosion by water and wind, but they were very different from their namesakes further south.
Yes, those are bison in that last photo! There were bison everywhere in TRNP - we encountered at least four different herds, two of which had 20-30 bison. We had to stop a couple of times while bison nonchalantly crossed the road.
There were several huge prairie dog towns, with hundreds of mounds of dirt stretching far in all directions, and we saw a dozen or so (surprisingly fat) prairie dogs. We did not see any wild horses, though we did chat with someone who photographed them regularly.
The Badlands changed color and shape around each bend in the scenic drive. This butte was my favorite: the mound at right was once part of the larger cliff; at some point, it broke off (when softer rock underneath was eroded) and tipped over at an angle. How do we know? The stripes match!
Still more surprises...
A coal seam was burning - we could see smoke rising from the trench that had been dug to prevent the fire from reaching the road. There were some hoodoos, not tall like the ones in Bryce Canyon, but still fun to see. And there were mysterious spherical rocks called cannonball concretions, which formed like pearls inside a butte, and emerged later as the surrounding material was eroded away.
On that hot day, with no shade from the Badlands, it was hard to imagine how it would feel during a harsh North Dakota winter. But we could still get a sense of how this unique place changed Teddy Roosevelt's life.
