We continued our drive along the southern edge of the Badlands Wall into an area known as the Pinnacles where we passed a lone coyote, the official state animal of South Dakota (since 1949): Just beyond the Pinnacles, the road heads due north across the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands where we immediately came upon a … Continue reading
The scenic drive through Badlands National Park is called the “Badlands Loop Road,” although it doesn’t make a loop, unless you consider it to start and end in the little town of Wall and to include the 21 mile drive from there on I-90 to get to the Park’s Northeast Entrance. Arriving at the Northeast … Continue reading
The northern edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota lies almost exactly 200 miles due south of the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP, an easy drive on US85 from Medora. It’s relatively mundane scenery, looking across rolling prairie, until you are within sight of the Black Hills, about the same time as US85 … Continue reading
The Little Missouri River is the thread that stitches together the three separate units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The river rises in northeastern Wyoming near the Devil’s Tower and from there snakes generally northward into the Dakotas, passing through Medora into the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP. It continues north from there another … Continue reading
I remember as a kid picking through change, looking for Indian Head pennies and nickels. They were both pretty much out of circulation by the 1960s, but every now and then I’d find one. The Indian Head penny, minted from 1859 to 1909 – when it was replaced by the Lincoln cent – wasn’t much … Continue reading
The Little Bighorn River flows north from Garryowen to the town of Hardin, Montana, where it joins the Bighorn River. Leaving the campground Tuesday, we likewise headed north, backtracking on I-90 to Hardin and continuing from there on MT47 to I-94, about 50 miles northeast of Billings, where the Bighorn merges into the Yellowstone River. … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 