On the Road, North Dakota - 7/16/2016

We rolled out of the Walmart parking lot by 9:15 AM as this will be our longest day driving.  We will be finishing up the last of Minnesota and driving almost all the way across North Dakota, about 450 miles.  Luckily it is Interstate 94 all the way so we should make good time.  Most of the semis had already left.  We filled the gas tank and hit the road.

Pat had packed sandwiches so we were able to pull into a rest area just before we reached Bismark and have lunch.  We lucked out in that we could see some heavy rain as we approached Bismark but luckily it passed just north of us and all we got was a few raindrops and some gusty wind.  One advantage of driving across these open areas is that you can see the rain from a long way off.

As we were nearing the end of the days drive, we were making good time and would also pick up an hour as the campground we are headed to is in the Mountain Time zone.  So we were able to stop at a couple of sites for some pictures of the scenery.  These next two photos are of Sweetbriar Lake.

Our destination for today is the Red Trail campground is Medora, ND, just on the edge of the Little Missouri  Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Here are some photos of the badlands just before we got to our campground.

We will be camping in Medora, ND, which is a small town that was founded in 1883 by a French nobleman by the name of Marquis de Mores on the transcontinental line of the Northern Pacific Railroad.  The town was named after his wife, Medora His idea was to ship refrigerated beef to Chicago and so he built a meat packing plant and a house called the Chateau de Mores.  The packing plant is gone but the house is now a museum.

Theodore Roosevelt wanted to be a rancher and established a ranch called the Elk Horn just north of Medora on the Little Missouri River.  His work with local ranchers and people of the area led to the naming of the national park after him.  When he ran for mayor of New York in 1886 he described himself as "the cowboy of the Dakotas."

We had called ahead for a reservation so we were able to get set up before it got too late.  Here we are in the campground.

The campground was located in a pretty area.

Tomorrow we leave North Dakota and head across Montana until we get to Great Falls about 400 miles.