Theodore Roosevelt National Park, South Unit

Upon our return from Portland, Oregon on Tuesday, June 4th we renewed our RV travels from Billings, Montana heading east once more but this time towards North Dakota. We stopped briefly for one night at the Jaycee West City Park in Glendive, Montana after 223 miles on the road and a four hour drive. No services at this stop but portable potties and garbage. Level pull-thru sites with some low trees but quiet during the night. Walking distance to Raleys grocery store and Ace Hardware. It was a free overnight dry camping location with just a short drive on to Teddy Roosevelt NP south unit.

June 5th we arrived in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, South Unit and met up with our Alaska traveling buddies, Sean and Kathy Earley from Erie, Pennsylvania. We drove up into the Cottonwood Campground on E River Rd, after entering the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Main Gate and Visitor's Center in Medora, ND. Half of the campsites in Cottonwood are first come, first serve and we able to find two sites for us both for the two nights we planned on visiting the South Unit. The price with the NP Senior Pass was only $7 per night.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is an American national park of the badlands in western North Dakota comprising three geographically separated areas. Honoring U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, it is the only American national park named directly after a single person.

Wonderful views surround the park. The landscape is like a blending of the Badlands of South Dakota and the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Wildlife can be seen mostly in the evening hours and sometimes Bison grazed right into the campground. Very quiet at night. Only a few generators were heard during day (allowed from 8am to 8pm). This is a very typical national park. No hookups, 'skinny roads' and sometimes challenging pull-throughs. In our site 12, it was actually a very long pull-thru but had a tight curve (for our 35ft fifth wheel). We had a bit of a time getting into a position but felt confident that we could unhitch and then hitch back again. Near the Little Missouri River, there are multiple opportunities to see the wildlife.

We got set up and settled in to our new home for the next two days spending the afternoon relaxing and catching up with Sean and Kathy in our camping chairs. We made it an early evening and had an incredible quiet and restful night.

The next day we drove down to the South Unit Visitor's Center, experienced an fantastic Teddy Roosevelt (TR) reenactor who was very knowledgeable and friendly, then toured TR's Maltese Cross Ranch Cabin.

Later we drove back towards the campground and continued out to the park's scenic loop drive looking for more wildlife. We stopped early on at the Peaceful Valley Ranch site to get some photographs of two free-range Bison. A little later and up the road at Prairie Dog Town we were greeted by a large herd of Bison in and among the Prairie Dogs. The bison grazed as they walked towards the road. One even decided to roll in the dirt near our viewing area. It was like we weren't even there. The Park Rangers recommend a safe distance equal to two bus lengths, but many got closer than that. We didn't!

Roosevelt first came to the North Dakota badlands to hunt bison in September 1883. During that first short trip, he got his bison and fell in love with the rugged lifestyle and the "perfect freedom" of the West. He invested $14,000 in the Maltese Cross Ranch, which was already being managed by Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield, seven miles south of Medora. That winter, Ferris and Merrifield built the Maltese Cross Cabin. After the death of both his wife and his mother on February 14, 1884, Roosevelt returned to his North Dakota ranch seeking solitude and time to heal. That summer, he started his second ranch, the Elkhorn Ranch, 35 miles north of Medora, which he hired two Maine woodsmen, Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow, to operate. Roosevelt took great interest in his ranches and in hunting in the West, detailing his experiences in pieces published in eastern newspapers and magazines. He wrote three major works on his life in the West: Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter. His adventures in "the strenuous life" outdoors and the loss of his cattle in the starvation winter of 1886–1887 were influential in his pursuit of conservation policies as President of the United States (1901–1909).