This summer I was pretty occupied with studying for the PE exam (an important thing for my engineering career) but now I’ve passed (hooray!) and am getting back to my National Parks journey. This time it’s bringing Felix and I to one of the least visited states in the US: North Dakota! We flew into Bismark–whose airport was so small it only had four gates– rented a car, and drove west toward Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP).

The first day of the trip (Saturday) was just a travel day and we planned to stay overnight in the town of Dickinson, ND. Along the way, we saw signs for something called the Enchanted Highway. We didn’t have anything on the itinerary so we pulled off to check it out. It’s a series of scrap metal sculptures along a 32-mile road. They’re…not great. We only saw two of them because it wasn’t worth going out of our way to see more.

Driving through North Dakota was pretty much exactly as you would imagine it: just fields as far as you can see, occasionally dotted with cows or hay bales. I appreciated the sculptures for being a bit of whimsy among the nothingness.

On Sunday we headed to the north unit of TRNP. The park has two sections that are about an hour drive from each other. Just outside the park, the monotonous fields gave way to sprawling hills with the telltale stripes of the badlands. The badlands of North Dakota were formed when the Little Missouri River, which runs through the park, wore away at this region of the Great Plains, revealing the layers of earth that were buried below.

I’d seen photos of TRNP while researching this trip and it was more beautiful than I expected. The photos really can’t do it justice. Also, we saw a bison within five minutes of driving into the park, so that was a quick payoff.

Our first stop along the scenic drive was the cannonball concretions. These oddly-round boulders are formed from mineral deposits in pockets of the sediments. They’re a quick stop right along the road and are kind of fun and alien-looking.

We stopped at an overlook of the Little Missouri River and got our classic stacks photo.

Near the end of the scenic drive, the badlands transitioned back into a prairie. I was unexcited by the resurgence of grass until we came across a herd of bison right next to the road! They look so fluffy and pet-able but the park rangers insist they are not pet-able.

The scenic drive ends at another overlook of the Little Missouri River, which was pretty but didn’t look that different from the other overlook. We headed back and said hello again to our bison friends on the way.

We stopped to do the Caprock Coulee nature trail, which goes along a little valley in the badlands. It was ok–the view from in the hills is not that different from the road.

That’s all for our activities in the north unit. The north unit is much less popular than the South Unit, but I had a great time and appreciated that it wasn’t crowded.

I had planned to do the south unit the next day, but we had a bit of extra time so we stopped at the Painted Canyon Visitor Center, which is separate from the main loop drive in the south unit. We were in the plains and then suddenly I could see a huge canyon filled with hills and valleys of the badlands. It was so massive it reminded me of the grand canyon. I wondered (and still am not 100% sure on) how one river created something so vast. 

We did a short hike that took us down into the painted canyon, but the view from inside isn’t really better than the view from the rim. 

The small town of Medora, ND sits right below the park’s south unit and seems to exist purely off tourism from TRNP. Theodore Roosevelt isn’t from here; he spent some time in the badlands of North Dakota prior to his presidency and it inspired his passion for conservation. Medora regards him as a hometown hero since his park is the only reason their town still exists.

One of the activities offered by the town of Medora is called the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, which is a dinner event. Felix and I had tickets for this, which started at 5:30, but ended up arriving way too early because the park’s north unit is in central time while Medora is in mountain time, and the time on our phones kept switching back and forth.

At the Pitchfork Steak Fondue, they cook steaks on a pitchfork by immersing them in a cauldron of boiling oil. The venue, as we learned, is basically a covered outdoor cafeteria. We lined up, piled some side dishes from a buffet onto a metal food tray, and then received our pitchfork steaks. The food was ok. Lemonade was the only drink option besides water and during the whole dinner there were wasps trying to crawl into my drink. Did I mention this experience was $50 per person? It’s a crazy tourist trap. When I travel, I like to do the big activities that the destination is known for, so I’m pretty vulnerable to tourist traps.

The other big attraction/tourist trap offered by the town is the Medora Musical, which is advertised as “the best show in the west”. Felix and I both love musicals, so we had to check it out. Thunderstorms blew through town in the evening and we were very worried that the show would be cancelled because it’s an outdoor theater. If your show is cancelled because of weather, they’ll give you a voucher to see the show another night, which is unhelpful because most people are visiting from out of town. Luckily for us, the weather cleared in time for the show.

The Medora Musical, as it turns out, is an extremely cheesy, patriotic jukebox musical with numbers about Medora’s history, Theodore Roosevelt, and America in general. It didn’t really have an overarching story. In the opening number, they sang “Take Me Home, Country Roads” but replaced “West Virginia” with “North Dakota”, which Felix and I had jokingly been singing to each other before the show, and I went absolutely wild for it.

The show did a lot of whitewashing of American history that I didn’t like. For example, they had a song about westward expansion where they said something like “people moved west and there was finally enough room for everyone and it was great”. I think it’s possible to be patriotic while still acknowledging America’s misdoings. Also, there was a lot of cheesy stuff aimed at kids that was just boring. I did enjoy the dancing and upbeat group numbers. Felix just hated it.

I thought this show was going to be a production by the best of North Dakota’s theater kids, but the cast was actually from all over the country and had some pretty serious acting credits–a bit below Broadway quality. I thought the singing, dancing, and costuming were all quite good. But this show lost its ability to be taken seriously when they rolled out a giant cake and asked the audience to sing Happy Birthday to America while a prairie dog mascot was on stage.

The next day, we drove the scenic loop drive in the south unit of TRNP. Very soon into our drive we came across some prairie dog towns. They’re grassy areas with hundreds of holes in the ground and tons of prairie dogs guarding their mounds and running around. The animals make a bunch of squeaking noises to alert each other of predators (like us) and are very cute to watch.

The loop drive has a bunch of viewpoint pullouts and short (less than a mile) hikes, which I really liked. We did a hike along a ridge line, a hike through a prairie dog town, and took a short walk to a vista at one of the highest points in the park. The view was great but also it was insanely windy.

As we drove around the park, we would occasionally see lone bison among the hills. The females and calves live in herds but the adult males often live alone or in small bachelor herds.

We stopped for lunch and then did the Wind Canyon trail which had a sandy, wind-carved canyon and a great view of the Little Missouri River and a sprawling prairie dog town.

On our way out of the park, we stopped at one more prairie dog town where the animals seemed especially active. They disappear when humans approach but they don’t seem particularly scared of cars.

We finished our TRNP activities early so Felix and I decided to head into Medora for a bit. I’ve been telling Felix that I wanted a cowboy hat since we went to Joshua Tree and he convinced me to finally get one. Yeehaw, I’m a real country girl. We also got some ice cream. Finally, we headed towards South Dakota for the next leg of our adventure.

Read Part 2 of the trip here!