Saturday, June 30, 2001



Well I finally got on my way about 3:00pm. Took my time today to make sure I had everything packed right. Though as I write this I am just finishing supper and realizing I had forgotten to pack some butter! So much for doing a good job on packing! O well i'll improvise. So here I am in North Dakota tonight. I was thinking about driving right on through to South Dakota today because well North Dakota was such a boring landscape to look at, it was literally a US version of Saskatchewan, that is to say until I hit the badlands! The badlands started at the north end of Roosevelt National Park. After driving along in the badlands for a while and seeing some of the cool landscapes and ground formations I decided to stay the night here in the park. I found out also that there are a number of trails here in the park that go all through the badlands, if weather permits I intend to do one of the longer ones tomorrow morning. If I do go on the trail ill be sure to heed the warning of the lady working at the parks front gate to watch my step as there are a lot of rattlesnakes in this area to be wary of.

So here I am watching the last remnants of my fire burn out and listening to the howling of the coyotes all around me in the hills above and I’m thinking that even though I haven’t gone very far yet that even so its been a good start to the trip. I’m looking forward to a hike tomorrow.

PS. One cool thing I forgot to mention was how there are herds of buffalo that run loose in this park, it was cool driving through the herds on my way to the campsites, but like the snakes you have to keep your distance from these animals as well obviously! I think though, one of the big males was getting turned on by my car as I drove by, he was watching it just a LITTLE to closely!