From Montana to North Dakota

We woke up at the rest stop fairly early, around 7:30am. The forecast said the high for the day was 87 degrees, but it felt pretty chilly at that time in the morning. We ate cereal and milk and the kids climbed around on some rocks near the rest stop while we put the van back into “driving mode” instead of “sleeping mode”. We cleaned out all the garbage and took advantage of the running water to wash all our dirty dishes too. 

Rest Stop Breakfast

Rest Stop Climbing

We felt like we had extra time because of the driving we did yesterday, so we took it slow, and it was about 9:30am when we finally left the rest top to visit Sluice Boxes State Park, only about a 10 minute drive away. To be honest, we almost skipped this stop altogether and just headed straight for Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but I’m glad we didn’t. Truly a gem of a park.

Hiking along the cliffs

Precarious cliff trail! I would not have wanted to do this one with toddlers in tow!

Incredible views

Heading down to Belt Creek

Finally made it down to the creek! We hiked down from the top ridge, about a 1.5 mile hike one way. Of course we skipped a lot of rocks.

The kids swam a little but the water was very cold. They spent a lot of time hunting and gathering interesting rocks. In this photo you can see two railroad support trusses. In 1879 two men found rich veins of silver and lead and within a year there were 100 men mining near here. The ore was originally sent out by wagons, but soon railroads were used. The mines continued production for over 50 years. 

The railroad was completed in 1891 and the last train went through in 1945. Apparently if you hike further into the park you can see ghost towns, cabins, railroad ruins, and other historical structures.

After spending a good long while playing along Belt Creek, we started to hike back up to the van. The views are spectacular.

More precarious hiking!

We were at Sluice Boxes State Park for a couple of hours at least before heading back on the road - it was another 6 hours or so to our campsite reservation at Theodore Roosevelt. Another longish day in the car, and I don’t have pictures to convey the experience, so you’ll have to use your imagination. We did stop at a gas station and let everyone spend up to $3 getting whatever treat they wanted, so the kids LOVED that part.

We crossed into North Dakota around 7 pm and reached the national park about 7:30pm. I had been looking forward to this park because there was supposedly lots and lots of wildlife to see. We were INSTANTLY rewarded with close up views of bison, wild horses, and prairie dogs IMMEDIATELY upon entering the park!

Close up bison

Handy guide

Another bison right in the campground! 

Turns out our reserved campsite was also incredible, right on the river. Shortly after we arrived, a camp host volunteer came around and gave the kids Junior Ranger Activity Booklets. The visitor center was closed when we entered the park, so they were excited to be able to get started on the booklets tonight and it gave them something to do while we were setting up the campsite. She also told us there was a petrified forest hike in the park we could do that was fairly short, and sounded very cool. The kids had fun playing "bison" around the campsite while we set up for the night.

View from our campsite

We had our own private trail to the river

We set up camp, played cards, ate, got ready for bed, and then spent some time with all of our flashlights turned off so we could look at the stars. It was a perfect clear night and we could see so many stars, and also the Milky Way. Joey was a little nervous about sleeping in the tent, because we had seen a bison walking right through some of the campsites as we drove into the campground, and the camp host volunteer told us they do sometimes walk right in the campground. He was afraid he would get trampled, but the host said there has never been any cases of that happening. She did say that sometimes they rub up against the vehicles though, so I guess we’ll see if the van gets any buffalo love tonight!