Another hectic week with bad internet access means that I’m late to the press, again!  So, Alex left us saying goodbye to Marie and Shaun in Spearfish after a night of cock sucking cowboys (ask an Aussie) and burgers. 

We set off from Spearfish and South Dakota for the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, but first we had to sort out Reg’s feet (tyres) so we made a stop in Rapid City at a truck tyre place.  On our trip to the Badlands we had a full-on emergency when one of Reg’s tyres burst as we drove along, we stopped at the side of the road looking at ‘The Wall’ in the park but also in the middle of nowhere.  We had to wait over an hour and a half for Brian from the tow company to arrive and patch up Reg, he still needed to have his tyres replaced and we had to carry the burst tyre inside for the next three days. The tyre people were very efficient, however we had to purchase three Michelin tyres to replace the two which had worn unevenly and the spare which was burst.  We are now running on a complete set of Michelin truck tyres, strangely they weren’t too complimentary about the tyre we bought from Walmart!

With Reg now reshod we set off to Theodore and the town of Medora. We stopped to view the Painted Canyon, very beautiful layered rock wall, more attractive than the similar wall at Badlands and then on to the Medora Campground.  Medora is the location of the main entrance to the south unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) and is also interesting as it was renovated and revived by a man called Harold Schafer, who made his fortune by inventing a bubble bath. 

Medora was originally a stop on the rail road and the nearest railhead to Theodore’s Elkhorn ranch where he recuperated after losing both his wife, in childbirth, and his mother, from TB, on the same day.  He loved the area despite not making a success of his ranch and returned even after becoming president.

Medora muddled along, however it built itself a theatre on a hillside and had a show featuring their most famous resident, Theodore.  It was its history and the theatre that attracted Howard who renovated the Rough Riders Hotel and bought the theatre.  He and his wife instigated an annual musical show and built a newer and bigger theatre, which are still going strong today after 50 years.  We went to the Medora Musical show on Tuesday evening, walking up the steep hill to the entrance with other guests stopping to offer us a lift (we think they thought we must be crazy to walk).  The show’s set is impressive recreating the town with the natural beauty of TRNP as a backdrop. The performance was OK, starting with musical recreation of Teddy’s charge and the introduction of the theme of Heroes.  This was our biggest issue in that all the heroes seemed to be male stereotypes, e.g. cowboy, farmer, trucker, soldier, the only female heroine was the maid from the hotel.  I think Medora needs to up its aspirations and get a few more female heroines, perhaps physicist, doctor, quantitive analyst?

During the day we cycled into the TRNP and walked a loop trail to an high plateau with an enormous prairie dog town, all barking away at us as we walked through it.  The day was enlivened (Helen you may wish to stop reading now) when Alex shouted ‘Snake!’ and I looked down to see a rattle snake next to my right food and raised up as if to strike, seems old deafo hadn’t heard it’s warning and had startled it.  Thankfully it didn’t bite me and we were able to continue our walk without Alex having to run for help while I began to hallucinate.  The walk was also memorable for both of us picking up ticks on our legs, which are horrible mini-crab like creatures that can latch on and suck blood and if not gotten rid of quickly infect you.  So, a beautiful walk but impinged by closed encounters with local fauna.

Wednesday, we drove to the north unit of TRNP and had a far more uneventful walk, this time above a bend in the Little Missouri river which was glittering below in a wide flood plain surrounded by large numbers of cottonwoods trees.  After the TRNP we drove to our campsite at the Lewis and Clark State Park, what we didn’t realise is that the town of Williston is an oil boom town for the Bakken Shale field and the good burghers of the town have decided to ‘improve’ their road infrastructure all at the same time.  At one point the road seemed little more than a ploughed furrow with earth movers either side of it.  Reg was not happy and we decided to try and detour on to county roads not realising these are not tarmacked and consequently we created a dust storm and both Reg and we became filthy. 

The next day we set off early and took a large detour around Williston and then along US highway 2, which runs from coast to coast, the wind had got up and we were buffeted for the whole 350 mile journey we made that day. We stopped in Glasgow for a coffee, it seems the railroad named the towns along the route after random European locations (there’s a Malta, Devon, Chester etc.) the local town signs feature tartan and the local high school teams wear tartan uniforms.  Our destination was a campsite in Havre (you guessed it, named after Le Havre in France but pronounced Hav-ver).  We encountered benign sexism at the campground when the owner, Roger, was startled to see that it was Alex who manoeuvred Reg in reverse into the tight site, saying she was ‘better than many men with her driving’, not sure she was too impressed.

Friday, the wind had died and we drove the rest of the route to Glacier National Park, it was on this drive that Reg’s odometer ticked through 15,000 miles.  We bought him with 283 miles on the clock in November 2016 and in general he has served us pretty well, we’re hoping the next 15,000 miles are similar.  We arrived at Glacier National Park (GNP) in the afternoon to discover the most highly recommended attractions, the Road to the Sun and the Highline trail were both closed owing to the volume of snow still up on the top.  The rangers weren’t able to give a definitive date for their reopening with only vague ‘in the next two weeks’ statements.

We persevered and over the next three days walked several incredibly beautiful trails, highlights were walking up to Iceberg Lake which sits in a natural amphitheatre below the mountains with waterfalls all around.  We walked to Florence Falls which tumble down a series of rock terraces, this was after a boat trip across a beautiful blue lake.  We had to walk 12 miles out and back with four hours to do it, it seemed we were running by the end but the falls were worth it. 

Our Moon’s Road Trip guidebook recommended stopping at Park Café in St Mary for their pies, which in America are sweet fruit pies rather than savoury, and we had a slice of huckleberry pie.  Huckleberries seem to be similar to blueberries and grow wild throughout the region forming a major part of bears diet, they can eat up to 100 lbs during the season to add weight before hibernating.

Alex will pick up next week, however we both love Glacier and can’t recommend it enough, we preferred it to Yellowstone and will definitely be back another year when Going to the Sun is open!

We stayed at the Kampgrounds of America outside the park, which has one of the most beautiful backdrops of snow-capped peaks we believe in the US, unfortunately its wi-fi is one of the worst we’ve encountered.  They did deliver a pizza to Reg’s door, so not all bad!

M