Devil's Tower and Wild Mustangs: National Parks Vacation Day 5
We’re back home from our National Parks Vacation! I decided to share my travel journal with y’all so you can relive the glory of our family vacationing with me…Enjoy!
DAY 5 NATIONAL PARKS VACATION, August 13
We woke up about 5:30 at Kemp’s Kamp and I was so thankful for that darn camp stove. Nick made us coffee on the stove and it was hot and good and comforting. He also made us scrambled eggs and sausage. It was soul-filling to have a hot breakfast. It's the little things that matter the most, isn't it?
We set out early, but as always, never as early as we were hoping for. I think we had the campsite torn down and we were in the car by 7:30. Not bad for a family with a teen and a pre-teen, right?
From there we set out for our next adventure…Mt. Moriah cemetery.
Home to the graves of such famous outlaws as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, it was fun to walk around and find all of them. On the way I had to read to the kids about them. We enjoyed reading all about the area and what a booming gold-rush area it had been back in the day.
Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.
From there we drove into Wyoming to go to Devil's Tower National Monument.
By the time we got to Devil's Tower it was H-O-T, hot! And you know who loves Devil's Tower? Bikers going to the Sturgis bike rally. They were everywhere! Which was fine except it was crazy busy driving in: They were some of the nicest, friendliest people that we've ever met. It was so nice to share the trail with them around the base of the tower. We had a picnic lunch part way along our walk. It was a really great hike. And it is so unbelievably gorgeous!
From there we headed to North Dakota to visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Which was a long drive by the way. And you know what there is in North Dakota and South Dakota? A whole lot of fields. Lots and lots of fields.
We arrived at the Red Trail Campground in Medora, North Dakota about 5:00.
We set up camp, made some picnic foods and headed basically across the street to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This park is gorgeous! It is one of the lesser visited parks because of how far away it is but it is well worth the trip. In the 2 hours we were there before it got too dark that evening we took a picnic and also saw bison, coyote, prairie dogs, deer, and wild mustangs. It was incredible.
After that it was about dark and we went back to the campground to do laundry. The boys took showers, we went to bed. It was nice.
We woke up in the middle of the night to the biggest rainstorm I’ve ever heard. It seriously rained all night long. And while our tent is waterproof on the bottom, one of the sides was sagging on the ground where inadvertently we forgot to stake the canopy eave of our tent so it would drive water away. And bad situation Nick woke me up to tell me that everything in the tent was soggy.
And then we laid in the tent and listened to more rain come.
It was dreadful. All night I kept waking up in a panic that the ipad or our phones or SOMETHING was going to be ruined in the water. None of those things were in the water but it still kept waking me up.
One night MAYBE I'll get a good nights sleep. Ah, the joy of camping!
What We Spent
Sodas at McDonald's $5.93
Laundry quarters: $5.50
What I'm Grateful For
Getting the headache with our campsite worked out and not having to find somewhere new!
Traveling mercies
car is in tip-top shape!
We went super early to the cemetary (they weren't even taking admission yet) and the crowds were really little
Seeing buffalo! Up close!
See you for Day 6!
Read about our time in Badlands sleeping in a teepee
You can read all about our time on the Ingalls Homestead here
We went to a Spam Museum and spent the night on the banks of a Minnesota lake!