Starting Mileage leaving Spearfish: 4369
Ending Mileage arriving Medora: 4562
Miles Driven: 193
Avg. MPG: 7.7
Gas Price: $4.09--Belfield, ND
Overnight: Medora, North Dakota
Travel Day
As normal, we didn't get on the road until about 10 AM. We had a long drive, mostly due north, today. The terrain was gently rolling hills with lots of grasses. We are still among the national grasslands areas.
I made sandwiches for us to eat along the way. When we have a long drive and we are pulling the trailer, I "try" to remember to make lunch as it's difficult to pull into parking lots and it takes a long time to get served when we stop at a restaurant.
We pulled along side the emergency area of the road to eat lunch. There was no where to pull off the road--at least at the time we wanted to eat. We sat in the trailer with the door open and battled flies. I think we picked up about 20 hitchhikers by the time we left. The field we were parked next to was a wheat field (we think) and there were thousands of grasshoppers as we walked along the side of the road.
One of the peculiar things we have noticed on this trip is that when there are cows pastured within hundreds of acres of farmland, they seem to congregate in one teeny-tiny corner of the field. Mind you, it's very hot, and they just seem to snuggle with each other.
We saw an unusual sight in one of the open range pastures. Two horses took off chasing a herd of about 15 prong-horned antelope. It was quite funny as the horses seemed to be having a great time chasing the antelope about the area.
Northern South Dakota and North Dakota seem to be sprouting lots of oil wells that are active. Many have large storage tanks beside the wells. I didn't realize there was so much drilling in this area.
For the first time on this trip, we have seen large herds of sheep today. I love this picture with the donkey among the sheep. Is he trying to be the black sheep?
When we left US 85 North and headed west on I-94, the terrain changed rapidly to a Badlands area. It looked much like the Badlands out of Wall, SD, but not quite as tall. The colors were about the same. But, there is more brush on these Badlands than in Wall.
Medora is a clean, western-themed town.
The campground sites were rather close together as you had someone directly behind you. The distance between sites was a little less than average, but there is little grass and the sites seemed very dusty. A strange phenomenon we had not experienced in other campgrounds is that campers seem to have no thought of boundaries. Kids, adults, and pets just walk right through your camp, even when you are sitting at the picnic table at your own site. Strange lack of privacy.
No sooner had we gotten set up when the trains started. Geez. They sound as if they are right on top of you (they are next to the campground), but their whistles were exceptionally loud. Not sure if that's because the sound echos off of the mountains or what (see next campground picture with mountains in background). But, each time one comes through, there is a series of three whistles. And, they come through about every 2 hours.
We rested a bit, despite the trains, and then headed out to check out the town and find a place to eat. We thought we'd like a steak as we have not had one in about a month. Finding a place to eat seemed like a big deal. We ended up at a saloon that was very noisy and not so tidy. The table cloth, plastic, was so dirty I'm not sure how long it had been since it was property cleaned. We were just about to head out when the server appeared. We had already determined most of the other places were of the same caliber. So, we just stuck it out. We didn't go for a steak; we opted for burgers instead. They were good, but I was glad to get out of there.
During our drive around town, we had spotted an ad for a one-man show about President Teddy Roosevelt that would be presented the next day. So, we found a place to get tickets as we thought that we might learn something and be entertained at the same time. Tomorrow will tell.
We had our ice cream later that night (complements of our Wal-Mart shopping) and settled in to try and sleep through the trains.
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