Heading straight North out of Bell Fourche, SD, it becomes apparent how many Canadians are sightseeing in the USA.  The highway we are on runs up to Canada so the Southerly stream of cars and motorhomes with Canadian plates seems endless.  A boost for our economy from our neighbors to the North.

I had been meaning to mention a series of news articles announcing the availability of travel articles written in the 1930′s.  These articles were commissioned by the government to help support down and out writers during the Depression.  The idea was for them to write about parts of the US in an effort to stimulate road trips and get the tourist economy going again.  They are being released by the National Archives now and I have read a couple describing  Northwest locations and they are quite fascinating as a look back in time.  I hope to find more as we go along, but, I digress…

It appears that North & South Dakota have been turned over to the motorcyclists.  Although the big Harley-Davidson rally in Sturgis is yet to begin they are everywhere in packs of 30-50 at a time.  So, we just keep right and let them go along their way.  As an aside, HD must be making a new model that looks like something out of the future with an evil slit headlight array and fully enclosed bodywork such that it looks like Darth Vader on two wheels.

OK onward.  Continuing our qwest for the quirky, our first stop was the geographical center of the United States.  Imagine calculating the entire land area of the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, and figuring out where the center point would be, sort of like the center point of a circle.  Turns out it is about 18 miles north of Belle Fourche on a gravel road in a field.  We found it but were thwarted by a barbwire fence keeping us back about 50 feet from the actual monument.  As usual, we were the only ones there windblown and standing in the grass.

Our big event today was to tour the Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Madora, ND.  Old Teddy became enamored with the cattle business and the badlands before becoming President and wound up owning more than 70,000 acres in three parcels.  We toured the South Unit and its 36 mile scenic drive.  While South Dakota touts its badlands, North Dakota has a larger area created by geological and natural forces and much of them belonged to TR which he deeded over to the the citizens of the US for posterity.  The areas now are inhabited by wild horses, prairie dogs, and buffalo.

We first saw the wild horses from the Interstate that cuts through the land as we exited for Medora and the park entrance.  Little did we realize that Medora is a tourist trap of the first order.  Featuring a complete kitschy re-creation of a frontier town, you have to run the t-shirt and fudge gauntlet to get to the park entrance.  Once inside, the self guiding tour took us by colorful rock formations and the large prairie dog towns.  We also gained new knowledge that much of the appearance of the badland rocks was caused by the intense heat generated by a burning coal seam within the rocks that melted and fused the remaining material into a surface that looks like gunite or plaster.  These coal seam fires took place over centuries with the last one finally dying out in the 1970′s.

Buffalo roam this park with their numbers exceeding 300 or so in the area we were in.  After seeing one or two in the distance and a couple up close, we finally came upon a herd of 100 or so grazing in a meadow.  Quite a sight.

A late lunch in Medora where I had a buffalo burger to commemorate the event and we headed for Bismarck.  Our  journey was highlighted by two roadside items.  First, a giant metal sculpture of wild geese marking the entrance to the Enchanted Highway, and second, a giant Holstein cow sculpture commemorating the dairymen of North Dakota.  The pictures need to be looked at to get a “feel” for these oddities.