West toward Montana

We finally got on the road Tuesday morning, Aug 17, around 10:30am. Drove back through Valley City. Such a neat town snuggled in the valley. We jumped back on I-94 and headed west. The wind was originally coming out of the west, but about midway in the state, it changed from the south — made for an ugly cross wind for traveling. Glad we aren’t pulling a very high-profile RV.

We saw acres and acres, and more acres of sunflowers. And I thought Kansas was the sunflower state! It still wasn’t humid (like around Kansas City) but the temp topped at 88° a little after 5:00pm (Mountain Time by then).

From Bismarck, we took a scenic route on Hwy 10 heading west, but didn’t much of anything we couldn’t have seen from the Interstate.

However, we saw this fantastic metal structure along the interstate and decided to explore the Enchanted Highway, a 35 mile stretch of road between Gladstone and Regent, ND. There were about eight sculptures but these were our favorites.

We bailed off I-94 at Medora ND. Wow, another interesting town nestled in a valley (made by the Little Missouri River flowing NORTH through it).

We wound our way through town and entered the entrance to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, encompassing the North Dakota version of the Badlands. And it WAS rugged!!

We stayed two nights at the Cottonwood Campground, right along side the Little Missouri River. Fantastic views. It took the trailer awhile the first night to cool off. By the 2nd night though, the trailer stayed open and cooler.

We toured the Park and saw wild horses, lots of prairie dogs in their “towns”, and not-to-wild bison. It was partly cloudy with a nice breeze.

We spent some time talking with another couple who pulled into camp with a Casita. They were returning to Texas from a trip to Alaska in their Casita.

Tomorrow we head south to the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming before finally getting to the Black Hills of South Dakota.