We made it! While not the most westward point on our journey, our “destination” for this trip was the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and we had arrived.
After a week of mostly sitting and driving, I was delighted that this was going to be a “local” day. Traveling with a teenager does mean quiet mornings (assuming you let them sleep!) so I used that quiet time to go for a run. I’m not much of a runner, and it’s enough work that while I enjoy the “new sights” parts of running, and the general push toward fitness, the overall experience is just barely a positive one for me. Nonetheless, it was neat to explore the neighborhood behind the hotel and I did a slow (10.5’/mile), 3 mile run.
We did get kicked out of the hotel at noon, so eventually had to get underway. We charged up at a Tesla facility nearby and headed north to the “North Unit” of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I don’t know exactly why calling the “parts” or “sections” of the park “unit"s amuses me so, but it does.
We stopped at the visitor center at the entry to the North Unit. Presumably for Covid rules, it was limited access at any given time, so there was a very small queue to get in. We used the restrooms, chatted with the rangers and picked up a couple of souvenirs. There, again, we saw a stamp for the national park “passport” and were tempted to get it but would have regretted all of the parks that we went to and hadn’t stamped that we decided to continue to let it go.
On into the park, we took the scenic drive meandering through the unit approximately following along the path of the Little Missouri River. We stoped a few different times to admire the bison from afar, look over overlooks, wander along trails, and stop and smell (or at least photograph) the flowers.
The scenic drive ends at Oxbow Overlook(it’s an out-and-back), so we popped out there and admired the stunning view. We were tempted to do some of the bigger hikes but just didn’t have the time given our late start and the travel time to get there.
Approximately retracing our steps, we headed south to Belfield, ND to get checked into our Airbnb. We knew going in that it was a single-wide mobile home, but I don’t think that we knew it was part of a “campground”. It definitely seemed a little “rustic” but was cute, had everything we needed and was as convenient as we could get to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, so it all worked out fine. There’s not much to Belfield. While there was a restaurant there, Burly’s Roughrider Bar & Steakhouse, we decided to continue on back into Dickenson where we ate a the Sakura Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar. I was a little bit hesitant about raw fish in the middle of the Great Plains, but our meal was surprisingly good. We charged while eating and then returned to Belfield to catch our Zzs.