Crossing North Dakota and City of Medora, ND

09/13/2012 Thursday. This morning we decided to drive straight through to Medora, ND.  

 The prairie of ND was filled with hay bales, corn that was dried up from lack of rain, and fields of sunflowers.  

We loved watching the huge trucks carry oversized loads of hay headed to storage.  We also saw lots of cattle and oil wells.  

The prairie makes us feel "back home" since we lived in Billings, MT for three years.   I-94 has a speed limit of 75 mph. but we drive about 65 max.  The further west we went it became hilly as we approached the foothills of the Rockies.  Jeanne kept looking for her first antelope to photograph, but we didn't seen any.  We stopped in Dickerson, ND about 20 miles from our destination to buy fuel and some supplies since we were unsure what was available in Medora.  North Dakota is on Mountain Time and so it was about 9:30 CT when we got on the road and 3:30 MT when we arrived at the Red Trail CG.  We drove 346.2 miles today. We paid $65.24 at the Red Trail Campground in Medora for two nights.  We want to check out other campgrounds in the area before the workshop.  All the sites in this campground are on dirt. But the cable TV here is great, 60 channels.  Also good strong WIFI.  The water measured 360 ppm, so we bought a filter at the camp store and hooked it up.  The filter only brought the number down to 300 but anything helps.  Also, the campground boasts of a truck wash, but when we inquired we were told to just wash our rig in our campsite.  We were delighted.  That just doesn't happen at many campgrounds! 

 Iron art along I-94.  Canadian Geese.

These sunflowers had seen better days.  We were astonished at how many acres were planted along I-94.  Hundreds of thousands of sunflowers in full bloom would have been a sight to behold.

09/14/2012 Friday was a work day. Jeanne cleaned the entire inside of the coach, while Ed washed the RV and car. Bugs, bugs, and more bugs.  An entomologist’s dream. Later, we drove over to the Medora Campground to see if their water registered lower numbers than ours. No such luck.  In addition, the CG was not very appealing. We drove into Theodore Roosevelt National Park to check out their campground.  It is located 5 miles into the park from the entrance.  It was very nice, some pull-throughs, mostly level and shaded.  We decided to stay at the Red Trail Campground for the entire photo workshop, until Wednesday.  We need electricity to charge our computers in order to download our photos. Each day of the workshop we have to bring back our jazzed up pictures to have them critiqued by the professional photographer, Chuck Haney of chuckhaney@chuckhaney.com.  The entrance to the park is less than a mile from our campground so it is very convenient.

 Our first glimpse of the badlands.

 The trees are beautiful, already turning yellow and orange.

Behind the welcome center at the entrance to the park is a log cabin used by Theodore Roosevelt during his travels to this region. 

We briefly drove though the park.  It was stunning with its colorful rock formations, creating gorges and plateaus.  We saw two groups of buffalo and Jeanne took a lot of pictures, particularly near the Little Missouri River. A few of the buffalo got a little inquisitive, so we decided it was time to leave before we had an “encounter.” There are lots of Prairie Dog Towns. Cute, but they are still rodents. We drove through "Historical Medora".  It was nicer than we expected with upscale shopping.  Mostly small shops and quaint buildings that have tourist appeal.  We found out that there were 3 weddings that day, one at the Rough Riders Hotel where we stopped in to check their restaurant menu.  It is very upscale, with an expensive ala carte menu.  We drove back to the campground where we met campers next door from near Winnipeg, Manitoba who wanted to tour our Lazy Daze.  They stayed awhile and talked a lot about their government and asked many questions about how ours works.  We finally put our taco dinner together.  It was a good day!

 This is the post office, bank and church. It is truly a cowboy town!

 Lots of western appeal.

This is our campsite at the Red Trail Campground in Medora, ND with some of the badlands in the background.

Our photo workshop starts Sunday evening.  We are looking forward to seeing our friends, the Kreisberg family.  They are such a great group.  In addition, we consider our photographer, Chuck Haney, to be a very good friend.  Chuck has hosted the photo workshop for the Kreisberg's many times, which we have had the pleasure of attending.  He has done many workshops here at Theodore Roosevelt and has even self-published a book on Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which we hope to buy while we are here.  His website is chuckhaney@chuckhaney.com.  Take a peek.  You won't be disappointed.