Into the Dakotas - Part I - The Tin Can Chronicles

Medora, North Dakota – Badlands, Buffalo and Musicals

(Late-August/early September, 2017) After our stay at Devils Tower, Wyoming, we wandered north for a week-long visit to Medora, North Dakota, staying at the lovely Medora Campground. This peaceful campground, set in the cottonwood-dotted lowland along the Little Missouri River, has a stunning backdrop of eroded badlands. The park was a great place to ride out the busy Labor Day holiday weekend and as a base to explore nearby Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other area attractions.

Our Travel Itinerary – North & South Dakota – 2017

We particularly enjoyed scenic drives through Theodore Roosevelt National Park with its vistas of rugged badlands, herds of buffalo, and sprawling prairie dog towns. Jasmine was especially captivated by the antics of the prairie dogs as they scurried about.

Heavy haze and smoke from forest fires burning elsewhere in the west limited visibility and marred the vista views during our stay. At times, the smoke was so heavy that skies dimmed to an eerie orange-tinged twilight, redolent with the acrid scent of burning leaves. Passing rain showers and a shift in wind direction helped clear the skies for a few days.

Another highlight of our stay was attending the well-known Medora Musical. Set in an open air amphitheater with a sweeping vista of the North Dakota badlands, the musical featured high-energy western music, dance, comedy and narrative relating the history of the area and of the legacy of America’s 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt, during his time in the North Dakota Territory. As a bonus, before the performance we saw a gorgeous nearly-full moon rising over the badlands in the evening twilight. Lovely!

A Short Stop in Lemmon, South Dakota

From Medora we diverted to Lemmon, South Dakota, as an opportunity to visit with a cousin, Stan W., whom I had not seen for some years. We stayed just a few days at the Shadehill Recreation Area campground, a lovely, peaceful and forested park set on the shore of the Shadehill Reservoir.

Shadehill is best-known as the site of the 1823 grizzly bear mauling of adventurer Hugh Glass – abandoned to die by his companions, Glass survived and crawled some 100 miles to the Missouri River and then downstream to safety at Fort Kiowa. A marker overlooking the reservoir commemorates the event and the story was recently dramatized in the DiCaprio film, “The Revenant”.

While in the area, we visited with Stan and took in several local area attractions, including the Grand River Museum and the Lemmon Petrified Wood Museum and Park. We especially enjoyed seeing the fantastical metal sculptures of local artist, John Lopez. These metal creations, so reminiscent of something dreamed of by Jules Verne or of Steampunk genre automatons, are prominently displayed in the John Lopez Studio Kokomo Gallery and in other installations around town.