Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We were up and at 'em today before 6am. On our way out of the Black Hills National Forest we spotted many more deer and wild turkeys. I will miss the forest, but we will be in Yellowstone in a couple days to get my fill again.

The drive started off beautiful today. For about an hour we drove along the Eastern side of the Black Hills National Forest, so one side of the road was trees and forest and the other side was huge rolling hills.

For breakfast, we both mutually agreed that we needed a donut. So of course I get on the "Around Me" app on my iphone to look for a local bakery. Well, just our luck there happened to be one in the next town we went through. I haven't had a donut in at least nine months and when we walked into Jerry's Cakes and Donuts in Rapid City it smelled amazing, I wanted to try one of everything. Instead I opted for my favorite chocolate cream filled and an apple fritter. Scott got a cream filled maple with nuts and a glazed cinnamon twist. Let me just tell you, these donuts were amazing but I should have only gotten one. I ate one for breakfast and took the second one to go. Scott managed to polish both of his off with no problem. I know better than to get two, but I just couldn't help myself!

Enough about donuts, once we started heading North up to North Dakota the scenery changed.. We drove through slight rolling hills and grasslands...about three hours into the drive I had had enough of South and North Dakota! Thankfully we were about to our destination.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Roosevelt National Park is another beautiful park. Very similar to the Badlands but very different at the same time. There are two sections of the park; a North section and a South section. We only planned to tour the south section on this trip. The park has a ton of wildlife similar to the two parks we had just left. The one different species that this park had are the wild horses. We were very fortunate again today and got to see buffalo alongside the road, two different groups of wild horses, deer, and prairie dogs in addition to beautiful scenery.


We're camping again but this time didn't have reservations. The National Park has a campground that is first come first serve. Thankfully there were plenty of spots to choose from. Unfortunately the last two campgrounds have spoiled me and the one we're staying in is much more primitive. No Wi-Fi or showers here...bummer!

We went on another hike today. It was more of a prairie/grasslands hike. It was just an easy one today. I really need to remember that when we go on these grasslands hikes I should really wear long pants! (Jones Creek Trail)

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The benefit of staying in the Park is that you can drive through it "after hours". Scott and I took a drive tonight around sunset hoping to see elk and more wildlife. We didn't see any elk but did see a ton of deer. Two in particular were Bambi's with their beautiful blanket of spots. As we were coming up to them they had just walked onto the road. They stopped right in the middle and then again on the side. It was awesome and they were adorable!




We have a ton of pictures but my Internet connection is way too slow to upload them. I will post pics once we get to an area with a faster connection Goodnight for now.