Prairie dogs. When we gathered together for our family pow-wow after our #Gates50States Summer 2020 Adventure and asked the kids what came to mind when we said, “North Dakota,” Lincoln responded, “Prairie dogs!”
Let’s be clear. North Dakota is more than prairie dogs. Much, much more. When we began formulating #gates50states several years ago and we started receiving state travel guides in the mail, North Dakota rose to the top of my interest list. The outdoors feel, the small population centers, the wildlife, unique landscape… North Dakota was exciting for me (RG).
Originally, we’d planned on visiting California in the summer of 2020. Then Covid-19 hit, and California… well… the nation lost their collective minds. At least the governors did. And the media. And much of the public. While this is much more of a family travel blog than a political blog, it is sufficient at this point to say we needed to change our plans away from California. We needed to visit states that were a bit more welcoming, a bit more tolerant of guests. The Dakotas immediately came to mind, and Jenn got to work.
We flew into Bismarck, and while we wanted to visit the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum, it was closed for Covid-19 reasons, and we settled on Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park as a place to gather some history of the area, from Native American times to the days of General Custer, and also a place to stretch our legs.
Here, we learned of the Mandan people who occupied the land prior to the American settlers. The North Dakota State Parks system puts on a wonderful interpretive display of the mound homes showing how the Mandan lived and how they operated.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park was always our primary destination to visit in North Dakota. Taking in photos and stories of the separate park units induced psychological drooling in my mind as the landscape and geography is nothing like what we’ve experienced in Ohio. It didn’t disappoint. (And one of these days we’re going to take our 4Runner to the Elkhorn Ranch!)
First we stayed in Watford City, a place clearly impacted by the recent oil boom. The Watford Hotel offered very pleasant accommodations, much better than one might expect in an area with so little population, and it provided good access to the North Unit. Interestingly, the hotel was quite empty, and our family occupied two of the three overall occupied rooms during our time there. It was a little eerie just how not busy the hotel was. With the recent oil setback, things had slowed down. Suited us just fine.
We’d read about the wildlife, its prevalence and close proximity, but it didn’t really hit us until the wildlife changed our hiking plans. We’d intended to make a loop of the Caprock Coulee Trail, but there was no way around this herd of beasts, so we turned around, passed the parking lot, and made it to a beautiful overlook on the south side of the loop.
We enjoyed a good dinner at Outlaws after a hot day of hiking. If you visit, keep in mind an order of their house root beer is very large, and we highly recommend the Pazookie to finish off your meal. You’ll thank us later. 😉
After we checked out of the hotel the following morning, we spent some more time in the North Unit before moving to the South Unit. While on the Little Missouri Nature Trail, Lydia led our way through a grassy area and soon backed quickly into the line of us behind her. Usually she’s a fan of snakes, but this Prairie Rattlesnake had been curled up on the trail, was not happy about being disturbed, and was not shy about advancing toward us. We gave it some space!
Medora is typical of the small town next to a national park. (We’re looking at you Springdale, UT!) Sure, there was a traffic light, but not much of a grocery store (though the C-Store came through for a meal!), and it’s just a small, friendly, unassuming place.
The South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park is much larger than the North Unit, but a small portion of its loop road had been closed, having washed out some time ago, and was presently being repaired. Then we learned the hard way (below) a much larger portion of the loop road was scheduled to be closed on our second day in the park. We were grateful to have been able to drive most of the loop road on our first day in the park. (Make sure to check NPS individual park websites at several different points before traveling. All road maintenance, closures, etc. are posted on the front page.)
After we’d driven most of the loop on our first day, we took a hike stop at the Coal Vein Trail. What a cool history! A coal vein caught fire under the ground and eventually collapsed after it burned out, presenting a different topography and look compared with what we’d seen elsewhere in the North Dakota badlands.
The next day, we intended to leave a car at the east end of the Jones Creek Trail and simply hike through, but because of the road closure, we ended up making it an out-and-back. Not our favorite style, and one of our kids in particular tends to gripe about those, but the weather was beautiful, the scenery was gorgeous, and we just made a morning of it.
As it turned out, the kids got a kick out of climbing the butte peaks along the way, certainly adding to their miles on the hike. But as long as it’s their idea… If you squint, you can see Lincoln waaayyyyy off at the top of the peak in the (r) photo below.
Jones Creek Trail took us to the east side of Scenic Loop Drive where there was zero traffic. We had the east side of the South Unit to ourselves!
Off the beaten path, and that’s how the Gates Family likes to roll, is the Petrified Forest portion of the South Unit. A ranger told us we’d be disappointed if we’d already visited Petrified Forest National Park, as the color there was more vibrant than that of TRNP’s version, but we hadn’t been to Arizona’s version before, and we were up for an adventure, so we took the dirt road north through the wilderness area to a trail across a plateau and down a steep slope that spit us out into a plethora of petrified wood. Lots of climbing for the kids, interesting geology, wonderful weather, what wasn’t to enjoy?
Medora also gave us some pretty sunsets. Our first evening, I made it back to Wind Canyon Overlook for the type of landscape photography that bores the kids.
The drive back from Wind Canyon’s sunset offered a bit of the unexpected!
The second evening I simply set up at our house.
Not lost on us during our tour was the vast amount of farming and agriculture the state of North Dakota provides our nation. Likewise, we got an up-close look at the energy production with all of the oil rigs on the horizon. We wonder if North Dakota might be able to function as its own nation given their ability to trade in food and energy. And the people were so friendly. North Dakota left a very good impression on us.
#Gates50States 
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