North Dakota for the win: National Parks Vacation Day 6
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 6 National Parks Vacation, August 14
We woke up in the morning to a soggy doggy mess. The air matreses were soggy, the pillows, the tent, the tarp. Everything. I was so thankful for us deciding to cover the tent bottom with air matresses. That kept us off the ground and kept our sleeping bags dry. I can't even imagine the horribleness if we had all had to sleep in a puddle.
So everything was a soggy mess but thanks to that hitch tray all of the wet stuff could just be strapped in and didn’t have to come in the car. Praise the Lord! We were able to have it air-dried as opposed to sitting in the car growing into a mildewy smelly mess.
This day felt like a long, long day.
After breakfast at the campsite of pecan pie (I am not ashamed to admit that after the night of everything being a gross and soggy mess I told the kids to just find something to eat...anything) we went back to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park to get the kids Junior Ranger books from the visitors center.
Behind the visitors center was the Maltese Cross Cabin which was so, so cool and amazing! It was the original ranch home of Theodore Roosevelt here in North Dakota.
If you've been a reader here then you know that our son is a HUGE Teddy Roosevelt fan. It was amazing to see into the cabin and see where the president slept when he was living out west.
From there we drove to another entrance to the south unit and saw how amazing this park truly is. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is HUGE! So large in fact that there is a South Unit and a North Unit.
After enjoying more of the South Unit we meandered to the North Unit. And when I say meandered I mean it took us almost 2 hours to get there!
I was amazed at how different the two units are from one another. While the south unit was lush and hilly, the north unit we found to have huge rock formations, sand, and lots of arid areas. The kids commented on how it felt like we were on a different planet and it's true, it did feel that way!
We ate a large snack of monster cookies, cheese and crackers, juice, water, and sour patch kids (because vacation!) at the park. We went for a nature hike and then we out of the park to head towards the Fort Union Trading Post.
This trading post was a place where Native Americans could come and trade furs for merchandise and money. It was fascinating to see how it was operated and to learn all of the details of the place. One of the things that was interesting to me was the fact that they had different rooms and different operating procedures based on who was coming. If different tribes were visiting that didn't get along they would basically box them off from one another.
The fort was privately owned and operated, it wasn't government run but is not a National Monument because of it's rich and important history. They had a really great junior trading program as well as a fun junior ranger program.
From there we left North Dakota and drove to our next destination...Montana!
It was so beautiful driving through all of the expansiveness of the state. There were so many grasshoppers that were hitting our car. When we stopped to get gas in a small town, we all hopped out and found the front of our car completely caked with grasshoppers! Caked!
This leg of our journey was so long. We were headed to Billings, Montana and it was 5 hours away. Yeesh! There is definitely a reason why we try to not be in the car for a long length of time.
When we FINALLY arrived in Billings we stopped at Costco. We were back in civilization! The kids had been begging for some Costco muffins to eat when we get to Yellowstone so we stopped to pick some up, along with some other foods we thought would be helpful...hello bottled water!
After our Costco run and checking into our hotel we decided to really live it up and actually go out to eat! While we could have stayed at the hotel and fixed something in our room, the reality was that we were tired of sandwiches and just needed a bit of a break! So we broke down and decided to go to the vacation destination restaurant...Cracker Barrel. Of course, right? Gotta get those candy sticks!
We all ordered huge meals, even the kids and you know what? We all ate everything! It was like scavengers getting a good hot meal that we didn't have to cook ourselves. It was heavenly!
From there we went to the hotel to do the sexy business of laundry. 2 loads later and 4 times through the dryer and we had nice clean clothes, ready for us to go to Yellowstone! I need to always remember how amazing Nick is because when we got the laundry in the wash I conked out and he stayed up past 1 in the morning to keep putting the laundry in the dryer. He is such a rockstar.
So that is it for Day 6! Words cannot express how good it felt to make it to Montana safely and get to sleep in a real bed with clean, crisp sheets. I feel that we are renewed and ready to go for our next leg of adventuring!
What We Spent
Costco: $54.82
Cracker Barrel: 57.62
Steaks from a local butcher: $19.99
Laundry: $9.75
What I'm Grateful For
We hit a bird on the highway, the poor thing. I am so thankful that it didn't shatter our windshield
We were able to see so much of God's creation today...it is breathtaking and big and marvelous
We were talking about getting some nice steaks as a treat for our first night in Yellowstone, pull into a gas station and RIGHT next to it is a butcher shop. Local Montana beef for a great price!
See you for Day 7!
On Day 5 we visited Devil's Tower!
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!