Where do we even begin? With the epic wildlife, the rugged buttes and valleys that make up the landscape, or the absolute vastness of this national park that has launched itself into our top favorite places in the U.S.? It’s the easiest blog to write due to our enthusiasm, and the hardest due to the immensity of its impact on our minds and our hearts.
We won’t bore you with the facts around President Roosevelt’s hand in protecting 230 million acres of land and establishing the National Parks system, or the history of the mounds, buttes, ridges, and points that make North Dakota one of the most distinctive landscapes we’ve seen so far, save to say each layer that now makes up the area’s badlands was formed, evolved, and, in some cases, was laid bare over the course of 65 million years. It’s a big number, but as we drove the Scenic Loop in the park’s South Unit, and later, the North Unit, “big” was a word that took on new meaning.
Still in awe of the seemingly endless farmlands and prairie lands as we drove from Bismarck to Medora, the small (and very touristy) “cowboy” town where we had a reservation the Red Trail Campground, the landscape changed, and almost without warning we were looking at colossal sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone “mountains” towering over deep valleys with rolling green hills and meandering rivers.
That morning, as we headed to Medora, we agreed we’d spend the evening and the next day catching up with work, then visit the South Unit on our second full day and the North Unit on our third full day. Obviously, that was a stupid and unrealistic plan, and our first trip into the South Unit saw us chomping at the bit as we entered the park around 7pm on the evening of our first day, lured by the promise of prairie dog towns and a greater chance at seeing wildlife around dusk.
Just minutes after entering the park we came upon our first prairie dog town, where hundreds of the adorable little rodents with almond-shaped eyes and sticky-uppy tails were going about their evening grass munching, while “sentinels” kept watch, throwing their whole upper bodies backwards and their arms upwards while emitting the cutest bark imaginable as part of their warning system.
It was straight out of a David Attenborough documentary, and Simon could have stayed there watching them until dark, but after about 20 minutes and a bit of prompting, he pointed Nippy up the hillside to see what else was in store.
The landscape had us utterly captivated, and over the course of three days we never grew tired of seeing the majestic hills and valleys.
But we had buffalo to find, and again, it wasn’t long before we spotted one, then drove alongside three more, so we congratulated ourselves on our incredible luck.
We weren’t going to do the entire drive that first evening (made longer due to the south part of the loop being closed, so it was an out-and-back journey), and just before we turned around we were treated to a small group of wild horses, which capped off an excellent evening of wildlife viewing.
The next day we went up to the North Unit, fueled by the bacon and pancakes I made because I’m no quitter and was determined I’d be up to the challenge. The drive was a bit more difficult due to a stretch of Highway 28 being closed, so we had to detour about 66 miles, round trip, out of our way. Along the way, Simon saw a sign for Killdeer Mountain Battlefield, and being the sort of person who cannot pass anything by if it has even the slighted hint of interest for him (and despite the fact that he’d been wondering about finding a restroom for quite some time), he made the decision to find the battlefield, and he was unanimous in that.
Long, unpleasant story short, it involved 16 miles round-trip on a dirt road (which he hates but thought there might be a restroom at the end of), a farmer and his son who angrily confined us on their property by locking the gate along the road so we couldn’t get out (stupid people that we are, as indicated by the sign on his gate that made some unfathomable reference to Stupid People, and the fact that the obscure battlefield monument was just a foot or two outside his gate and nearly impossible to see), and what can only be called an extremely disappointing monument to a grand total of two people who died on the “battlefield.”
Simon’s face says it all.
The North Unit is supposed to be the part of the park where wildlife is at a maximum, but we only saw a couple of small herds of buffalo, both at a distance. We did see remarkable “cannonball” rock formations, created by minerals pouring through sediment layers, which Ruthie found as fascinating as we did.
It was back to the South Unit the next day, and as magnificent as the park’s big picture is, the smaller details are equally compelling, and often we felt we were looking at structures created by the hand of Antoni Gaudi, architect and designer of Barcelona’s grand basilica, La Sagrada Familia. In the same way Gaudi’s Nativity Façade seems to be “melting,” so too do some of the water-and-wind-weathered rock formations.
But today nature had three very special gifts in store for us. The prairie dog town, seemingly in just 48 hours, had sprouted dozens and dozens of babies! Tiny and hilarious and full of the joys of spring, they wrestled and barked and made sure their cuteness captivated hearts, and we spent a long time watching their antics.
The buffalo took things a step further. As we came down a hillside into a deep valley, there they were, in their hundreds.
One massive herd took up both sides of the road, and the road itself. We inched our way forward, hoping the people behind us were happy to go slow too, until we found a parking space in the cutout, and that’s when things took an unexpected turn.
This buffalo loves cars. It licked the pickup truck two cars down from us, it rubbed its head against their grate, then it moved on to the car next to us, and finally, as dessert, it began licking our car, chewing on the hookups for our tow bar, and looking us dead in the eye when Ruthie started barking.
Now, let’s just say buffaloes have huge heads, and those heads have pointy bits. We’ve seen videos of cars the size of Nippy being turned into metal hamburger by enraged buffalo. So when this one came up to Simon’s window and stood there looking at him, we, and everyone around us, wondered what might happen next.
What happened next was, it felt it had made its point without using its points, and it was right. It moved on, leaving us with a thrilling if slightly terrifying memory we’ll treasure forever: The day Nippy got licked by a buffalo.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve done well. We did have one more special encounter waiting, when we came across not one but two coyotes prowling a prairie dog town. We thought we might witness the circle of life, but they decided to lay down for a nap instead, which was probably just as well. We weren’t sure we could watch prairie dogs being eaten.
Of course, we have no photos of this encounter. They were just out of reach of our zoom lenses. Instead, imagine two scraggly gray coyotes laying in a field, and you’ve pretty much got the picture.
We returned to Medora that evening, a funny little town that was quite touristy, but not obnoxiously so, and while we skipped the $50 per person Medora Music show everyone we’ve talked to since has asked if we saw (we live in Orlando, where shows are second to none but buffalo are non-existent), we did see the tractor parade, and that was enough for us.
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