Day 7 - Badlands, ND

We left Deadwood this morning. On the way out we drove up to Mount Moriah Cemetery. Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, and Potato Creek Johnny, are a few of the colorful characters buried up on the hill. But at twenty dollars to see their graves, we decided to take their word they were buried there!

On our drive to the North Dakota Badlands we ran into lots of construction. At one point, we had about a 15 minute wait and we struck up a conversation with the flag woman. She owns a ranch with her husband, but had to take on a second job due to the drought that they’ve experienced during the last 7 years. Her herd is down by about two-thirds because they can’t make hay and they have to carry water for their cattle to drink. She never complained, but said that God would take care of them.

We drove most of the day. We made a stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the first national park set aside by Teddy. He came out here to hunt and fell in love with the area, saw the need to conserve the land and created the National Park System. We saw our first herd of bison today, up to now we’d only seen a few buffalo. We stopped along the roadside and took quite a few pictures. Everything was fine until one of the buffalo wanted to chase another. A mini stampede started towards our vehicle. Jon was taking video at the time, and of course, he was standing through the sun roof of the car. As the bison came closer, I started screaming at Jon to get back in the car and get moving. Visions of explaining to National Rental that a buffalo smashed the PT Cruiser went through my head. Jon said he just about peed himself trying to get back inside quickly. The buffalo stopped, but only within a few feet of our car. We decided to move along!







I had a surprise dinner for Kim. We went to a pitch fork fondue! When we arrived there was a large number of pitch forks all stabbed with slabs of steaks. We watched the meat being lowered into 4 large vats of oil. Probably not the most health conscious meal we’ve ever eaten, but it was good and it was fun! The re must have been about 250 people at this dinner. We all ate under a large pavilion while a live county band played. My Jon is full of surprises, and some of them are even good!







This was our first trip to Montana. For many years, Jon wanted to visit. He had heard of the legendary Dental Floss tycoons. Jon just had to stop at the Montana border and get his picture taken with some Dental Floss!