Theodore Roosevelt National Park

                        The young man lost both his wife and mother on the same day…. February 14^th, 1884, just two days after welcoming his newborn daughter into the world. Grieved beyond understanding, he retreated to the only place that he knew would help him heal and grow stronger at the same time…. the badlands of North Dakota.

                        Did you ever wonder why some people can face adversity, fall down, and then rise again even greater than before? Usually that reason can be found in some early childhood traits, followed by significant happenings in their lives that defined them further….  those defining moments did not defeat them, it made them better.

                        In this case, we are talking about Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th President serving from 1901 to 1909. This was a transitional “cross-over” time in our history when the West still retained its rugged character. Cowboys were still hard at work on the ranches, the era of the trail-roaming outlaw was drawing to a close, and vast pockets of the West were still undeveloped wilderness.

                        And you thought we were going to talk about the Theodore Roosevelt National Park……. well, we are….  all in good time! But this is the stuff that helps make traveling so fascinating! It’s all well and good to come to these great places and see the wonders that they embody, but sometimes you just have to ask why? The why of the Grand Canyon is obvious, but the why of a national park named for a good guy out of our past? Not so obvious. We all know that good ol’ T.R. was an outdoorsman and was really the first BIG DEAL to advocate for conservation and some federal protection for places like Yosemite. In fact, it was only nine years after his Presidency that the National Park Service was officially established because T.R. had already named 5 National Parks, 18 National Monuments and about 150 National Forests!

                        But again, why T.R. and why here?

                        Long before he met John Muir, and long before he walked the paths in Yosemite Valley, Teddy R. lived in the badlands of North Dakota. He had two ranches here, on the banks of the Little Missouri River and it was here that he sought that aforementioned refuge in the beginning of his public life that helped him both recuperate, and further develop his plans for NYC, N.Y. State, and eventually the entire United States of America.

                        Soon after his death in 1916 folks started looking around the area for a suitable spot for a possible National Park. Sixteen years later the Roosevelt Recreation Area was established and as I often say (using a borrowed phrase from somebody!)….. the rest is history!

                        Today the Theodore Roosevelt National Park includes over 70,000 acres spread between three main sections, all of them are tucked in the far southwestern corner of North Dakota. TRNP ranks just about in the middle of our 63 National Parks for annual visitors, surprisingly (I thought) it outranks both Mesa Verde and Carlsbad Caverns in this department.

                        The scenery is an understated glorious as most of this is ‘badlands’, a term that goes way back to our native American friends, and echoed by some French explorers and trappers, and then by more recent cowboy-type personas. The interesting part of this is that these folks all came up with their own names and descriptions of the area that when translated mean basically the same thing!

                        But for today’s traveler are they really bad?

                                    No!

                                    In fact, they are quite grand! Gorgeous colors that popout of the strata laid down over millions of years of this area being the bottom a huge Cretaceous sea….  no more dinosaurs, but plenty of Current Critters such as, the American Bison, Pronghorn, Big Horn Sheep, Feral Horses, 14 bazillion Prairie Dogs (!), coyotes, badgers, and lots of other little guys round out the list. (and we haven’t even touched the birds or reptiles!)

                                    In the two main Units, the North and the South, there are two central drives with plenty of turnouts so that you can pull over and get closer or strategically view some really great stuff. The South Unit is definitely larger, but the North Unit has a bit more dramatic landscape. If you’re going all the way to North Dakota don’t skimp, take in all of it! The cute little town of Medora anchors the South Unit and has just what you’d expect from an old western town near a National Park….. restaurants masked as saloons, quaint little shops, outdoor adventures, and plenty of campsites for the likes of us.

So go ahead….. head out on Interstate 94, pull off at Exit 27 in North Dakota, and visit Teddy’s old stompin’ grounds. Check out his Library and get a sense of what made this great American leave such a lasting legacy!