THE BADLANDS OF NORTH DAKOTA

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt fell in love with the North Dakota badlands during his first visit there in 1883 when hunting bison. The establishment of Theodore Roosevelt National Park was to memorialize Roosevelt’s life, and the influence the landscape had on him and his conservation ethics. The 110 square miles park is divided into three sections packed with wildlife. The South and North Units have about 100 miles of foot and horse trails, wildlife viewing, and opportunities for back country hiking and camping. Besides wonderful wildlife, the National Park Service calls the bizarre geologic rock formations the “grim fairyland”.  Roosevelt said the badlands were “so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.”

 

North Dakota Badlands Overlook at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The park is made up various ecosystems such as flood plains, forests prairies and grasslands, and rivers and streams. Roosevelt said, “The preservation of the useful and beautiful animal and bird life of the country depends largely upon creating in the young an interest in the life of the woods and fields.

Rain pillars in wilderness portion of TRNP
(They look like giant mushrooms to me.)

Painted Canyons, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.

Cannon Ball Concretion: According to NPS, “This boulder is known as a ‘concretion’. The concretions are formed within sedementary rocks such as shale or sandstone. They form as minerals are deposited around a core. As the surrounding rocks erode, the ‘cannon balls’ become exposed.

This picture could be a postcard of the Badlands

The Little Missouri River at the North Unit. The park is fenced to stop the bison, wild feral horses, and cattle from getting out of the park, but other animals like deer, elk, and pronghorn can jump over or go under the fence.

Winter at the Maltese Cross Cabin where Roosevelt first came in 1883 to hunt buffalo. Roosevelt said, “I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision…I enjoyed the life to the full.”

Early morning at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Sunset over the North Dakota badlands.

Humor --

FIVE FUNNY FACTS OF LIFE

Having one child makes you a parent.
Having two makes you a referee.

Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right,
and the other is the husband.

You can’t buy love,
But you pay heavily for it.

Wife and husband always compromise.
The husband admits that he’s wrong, and the wife agrees with him.

Our language is called the Mother Tongue
because the father never gets a chance to speak.