North Dakota - Day 20 - Roosevelt Natl. Park North to Lake Sakakawea

Lake Sakakawea State Park, Pick City

Tuesday, 20 July 2021

I'd intended to do laundry this morning before leaving last night's campground.  But after I'd hauled my clothes over there, I found they only had 3 washers - 2 were broken and one had clothes in it, washed but still sitting in the washer.  I had 2 loads of clothes so even dumping out this person's clean clothes would only gain me 1 machine, so I said forget it and went to a laundromat in town.  Like I said, Williston has a way to go in putting together tourist facilities.

the lower yellow line is today's route

On the road

It was 11:25 when we finally got on the road, much later than I'd intended.

Leaving Williston, we crossed the Missouri River, which we did several times today.

You might be able to see on the map that AAA thinks the drive from Williston to the national park is a scenic one.  I too thought it was attractive, but it didn't seem much different from other landscapes I've seen in ND.  At least, not until I got near the park when the gorge carved by the Little Missouri River began to show itself.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The scenery here is stunning and fascinating.  I learned that my America the Beautiful Senior Pass let me in for free (ordinary vehicle charge is $25 I think).  Because my computer's being contrary, I'll limit the photos to a couple of unusual geological formations, an oxbow, and a couple of examples of the living inhabitants here.

Cannonballs

Showing how they grow in the ground.

The children in the background give you
a relative height for these.

Slump block

the explanation

This is the land mass intact.

This piece slumped off the right side . . .

. . . and this piece slumped off to the left.

Amazing, isn't it?

Oxbow

The river originally ran north to Hudson Bay.  In the most recent ice age, glaciers
blocked its path, which is when the river took a hard turn to the east (above).

in real life

In 2010, researchers found the oldest known living plains cottonwood here.
It was believed to have sprouted in 1641, and scientists have learned a lot studying its rings.
Narrow growth rings, for instance, identify the Dust Bowl, and also other drought years.

My photo of the oxbow (above) shows the gorge of the Little Missouri at a wide point.  Here's a photo I took from a different viewing area.

I don't know if the canyon is 600' deep here,
but it's that deep somewhere along the river's journey.

Local residents

I thought this white thing was beautiful and don't remember ever seeing any like it.

I took the video above without my reading glasses on and without having taken a video in months - so I couldn't remember what to do and couldn't see what I was doing, and I just shut it off after a few seconds, only to find later it was okay, if a little shaky.  Anyway, I put on my glasses and took a look at the camera to find the right button, but the buffalo had moved along and I almost missed him.  Listen to Dexter's reaction. 

These are such strange-looking animals.  Their hind ends look like they've been shaved, especially compared to the very thick coats on their front ends.

I hope those videos actually work, since that was another thing I've had trouble figuring out how to make it work.  It's taken me hours to get these 2 on my blog, so I hope they turn out to be worth it.

Back on the road

I passed a sign saying I was entering the Mountain Time Zone.  And I passed another sign saying I was passing through the Little Missouri National Grassland.

My "check engine" light came on yet again, but this time it was steady, not flashing, and though I pulled over for a bit it didn't go off as it has before.  This change of behavior is a little nerve-wracking and I feel like this time I need to get it checked.  After all, I've been driving almost 3 weeks since the last time I got it checked, and the light's come on maybe half a dozen times during that period.

I kept going down the road because it didn't seem like I had a choice - it's not like there was a shoulder for me to pull over onto - just a 2-lane road with curves and hills and not at all a good place to bring a large vehicle to a standstill - especially not a prolonged one while I waited for a tow or a mechanic.

The next town of any size was Killdeer, another town that's growing by leaps and bounds.  In 2010 the population was 751; in 2018 it was an estimated 1,147 (oil country, of course).  I hadn't planned to stop, but this warning light changed my mind.

I was looking for a garage or mechanics of any kind.  What I came to was a NAPA Auto Parts store.  I remembered that in Fargo, an O'Reilly Auto Parts had a sign out front saying they could check the codes for the "check engine" light, so I thought maybe this place could do it too.

Apparently they aren't supposed to but one guy there used to be a mechanic in Houston and was willing to do a basic check.  What the codes told him was that I had a multiple cylinder misfire and it should be running really poorly and I'd get terrible gas mileage.  Well, I believed him, but it hadn't been running any differently than at any other time and my gas mileage looked about as always.  So it clearly needed to be checked by a mechanic in a shop as soon as possible, but since I wasn't showing the symptoms, I stopped worrying so much.  I decided to take care of it when I got down to Bismarck in a few days.

I continued to pass cows, horses, grain fields, cornfields, hay bales from the previous harvest.  Grazing land, Lutheran churches, hills, marshes and oil wells.  The scenery in North Dakota doesn't seem to change much, but it's got a lot of variety, if you see what I mean.  I am really finding it very pretty.

I didn't get to the campground office until almost 5:00 (Central time, which was the time I was still operating on).  After checking in, I stopped at the waste tank dump and emptied them out.  Then I had a hard time figuring out the traffic pattern at this campground so it took me several tries to even get into my spot, let alone try to find a level-ish spot in the spot.  Then I needed to walk the dogs, who'd been very patient for quite a while.  It was 5:30 by the time I fed the kids which was almost 2 hours later than I usually prefer getting set up.  A very long day made longer by having to wait until the laundromat opened instead of taking care of it at the campground.  Oh well.  There's many worse things in the world.