North Dakota Badlands meet Teddy Roosevelt

Tuesday, 11 June 2013.  We left our KOA campground in Bismarck around 9:30 this morning and continued our journey west on I-94 across the entire width of North Dakota.  We did something like this last summer (in July), traveling the entire width of South Dakota from east to west on I-90.  Now, I don't want to get into an argument over The Dakotas, since I'm sure each has its own pluses and sightseeing areas (and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit last summer to Rapid City and the Mt. Rushmore area).  However, the journey today on I-94 across North Dakota was much more enjoyable than the one last year on I-90 across South Dakota.  Landscape was rugged, but very green (probably because of recent rains), and instead of being flat (like the SDakota trip), North Dakota's scenery and landscape (at least in this part of the state) was broken up by intermittent rolling hills and occasional gently winding interstate instead of the straight-as-an-arrow I-90 in SDakota.  We saw thousands of acres of farmland and several herds of cattle grazing within sight of the interstate.  Once we left the Bismarck-Mandan area, we passed through very few towns of any size to speak of, although we saw signs for towns all along I-94.

One gem we did find was the National Park Service (NPS) Center at Exit 32, about seven miles east of Medora.  This is not your typical NPS Center and rest stop, although we did end up having a bite to eat for lunch here as we explored the Center, its well-stocked gift shop (postcards for the grandkids!), and scenic viewpoints.  This NPS Center sits at the edge of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and smack in the middle of the Missouri National Grassland.  I took several pics from the Center's scenic viewpoint of the North Dakota Badlands that sit inside the TR National Park.  Different than the South Dakota Badlands -- which, while having their own kind of "beauty" looked just plain nasty.  I could only imagine wagon trains headed west having to cross the SDakota "bad lands" country.  The Badlands here in North Dakota have a very striking beauty to them.  I hope the pics capture that perspective.

The following five pics are more-or-less a panoramic view of the Badlands looking toward the TR National Park.  I snapped the pics one after the other, moving the camera slightly to the left before each pic.

The "hills" in these Badlands pics are formed by a combination of the elements: wind, rain, snow, and something call "slumping."  Trust me, that's the technical term for how some of these "hills" are formed.  Here's a close-up of one of the "hills" after probably tens of thousands of years of wear and tear.

Here are two additional pics showing more detail of the "slumping" effect.

After grabbing a bite to eat and thoroughly enjoying this NPS Center, we again headed west on I-94, finally crossing the border at Beach, ND, and soon passing through Wibaux and Glendive, Montana.  Oh, and we somehow managed to cross the Yellowstone River twice during our travels today on I-94. Our destination for tonight was Terry, MT, a small town (and I mean "small" with a population of 600) about 300 miles from tomorrow's destination campground, Yellowstone's Edge RV Park in Emigrant, MT.  From this park, which is situated right on the Yellowstone River, we are only about 30 minutes from the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  We'll be in the Yellowstone area for four full days, so hopefully we'll have plenty of opportunity to see and do everything we want.  Cheers!

Just for kicks, here's a pic of Terry, Montana (during the winter, obviously, so I didn't take this shot) to give our blog readers an insight into how "small" Terry actually was.  And don't ask about our campground -- don't think we'll be coming back to this particular campground anytime soon.