Wildlife in Every Direction - UP-Down-ALL Around

 

Park opens at 8am. We ate a good breakfast at the hotel and watched tv.  Hurricane Ida sure did a lot of damage in Néw Orleans.  Much flooding is also being reported in Tennessee.  More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday.    

We had to get lunch for today so we went to Subway and got an Italian sub, we already have barbecue baked chips and Coke Zero.  Now it’s time to get to our destination which is in Modera North Dakota.  We are at our exit to the Painted Canyon Visitor Center.  They don't open till 9am and it's only 8am.  We toured around the backside of the center and the view from there was jaw-dropping.

Time to get to our next destination of this journey.  The Theodore Roosevelt Park South Unit.  I will say the visit to this National Park was very interesting. We ran into 3 herds of bison, pronghorns, wild horses, and a prairie dog town.  Please enjoy the pictures of the scenery and wildlife.

It's early morning and we see a prairie dog town.  I have never seen anything like this.  Hundreds of hills with 100's of prairie dogs.

Our first overlook was the Boicourt overlook.  The scenery was amazing. We enjoyed walking out at Boicourt Trail and seeing the beautiful scenery.  There were benches along the path to sit and view the beauty. In the car and heading towards our next destination. This is some of the scenery along the road.

The road was blocked with bison and lots of calves.  We waited on the leader to get his herd down the hill to the watering hole.

The next stop was Buck Hill.  Wow, this was a challenge to get up but I made it with some rest stops. I spotted some wild horses in a distance on the top of the mountain.  I sat down and propped my camera on my knee and started taking pictures.  I wish you could feel the wind up here.  It's totally unbelievable.  The wind took my cap right off my head.  Thank goodness Marlon caught it before it went over the edge.

I tried my best at getting the shots of these horses before they notice me and take off.

From what I have read there was a controlled burn in 2018.  The black lines you can see in the mountains are coal.  Some areas are still smoking today as Marlon & I got to witness.  You can smell the smoke.  You only report if you see fire not smoke.

The last wildlife we saw today was a flock of turkeys.  Not very good pictures but you can tell what they are.

On the way out of the park, I saw a Prong Horn on top of a butte. No sooner than I saw him he was jumping down the butte.  I barely got a picture of him before he was out of sight.

As we left the park we drove through a town called Medora ND.  This place was an amazing town with lots of shops, places to eat, saloons, and places to stay. 

End of a beautiful windy sunshiny day.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We are up and eating breakfast at 6:30am and out the door at 7am to head to The Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit. On the way to Roosevelt park which took an hour to get there.   The land was filled with many pumps pumping for oil.  The steer was right there among the oil rigs.  Many fields were full of large round hay bales.  Does anyone know why there are round bales along the highway?  I thought it was odd to see the highway lined with bales of grass/hay.  I have to say this national park was very exciting as I got to see bison so close I could have touched them but I didn't.  Check out these videos before seeing the rest of the park.

We have arrived at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Marlon & I have never been to this park before.  So excited to see what the day holds for our journey.  I am happy we are here early no traffic just a few cars beside us. We didn't get very far into the park and I spotted this bison all by himself.

 As we were driving along I spotted this deer down by a small river. 
The next stop is the Cannonball Concretions Pullout. Marlon and I hiked around this area to get up close to the cannonball-like stones.

Lots of cannonballs

There weren't a lot of flowers in this area and there weren't a lot of water sources.  The grounds are mostly prairie grasses.

River Bend Overlook was a breathtaking sight to see. This place is all a part of the Badlands.  The Civilian Conservation Corps built the structure.  We walked down the trail to the building and the view was breathtaking.

We have now come across lots of bison.  Small herds and a lot of the herds had lots of calves.  Calves are born with fur that is red or tan. They are referred to as "red dogs" or cinnamons.