Day 59: Teddy Roosevelt’s Park

Today was for exploring Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This is the first true National Park I’ve been through on this trip!

We partook in the free hotel breakfast this morning. They had a waffle maker, which is always a favorite! The ladies who worked the breakfast were super nice and helpful. They had great tips on what to check out in the park and we more generally chatted about travel.

The park is broken up into a few sections. First up was the Painted Canyon. It’s beautiful badlands with varying scrubland and prairie and rock formations. We hiked down into the canyon. Up at the top the wind was howling, but down in the canyon it was much calmer. I practically forgot how windy it was until we looped back near the rim.

It was then onto the main part of the park. There’s a scenic drive with lots of lookouts and hikes off of it. We mostly just drove and admired the views from the car on the way out, with the exception of pulling over to watch a couple of Elk (I think) lying in the nearby parried. We noted what looked like the best spots/hikes, then on the way back stopped at those. We also swung by the campground in the park and were able to snag a site for the night.

Ruthie (one of the breakfast ladies) really highly recommend checking out the petrified forest, which is in another corner of the park. We drove about a half hour on dirt roads to get there and then it was a few miles out and back. Thankfully, we didn’t see any rattle snakes, which multiple people had warned us about. Also no Bison, though lots of hoof prints and some poop. The forest itself was quite something. What’s lefts of it is petrified tree stumps sitting upon these craggy rock formations.

We stopped for dinner in town at a local pub, then headed back into the park to the campground and pitched our tents. The sky was totally cloudless and were in the middle of nowhere, so we stayed up for a while and watched the stars. There is almost no light pollution, so we’re able to see just tons of stars!