theodore roosevelt national park

Theodore Roosevelt, in western North Dakota, is a lovely and underrated park. This was the third park of our 2023 National Park Adventure and it hit all the right notes – beautiful warm weather, no set agenda, and plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, plus good health and energy all around.

A quick note first about our drive from Rapid City toward Theodore Roosevelt: we made a detour along the way into Wyoming to visit Devil’s Tower National Monument. Devil’s Tower is an unusual rock formation (and consequently a rock climber’s paradise). We circled the entire monument after challenging the children to see how many people they could say hello to. Aaron Henry, the winner, spoke to over a hundred passersby!

We stayed that night at the cutest little rental house in Glendive, Montana. After dinner we drove into Makoshika State Park and watched the sunset. A storm blew in as we returned to the house, and the wind was so strong that trash cans were rolling wildly around the streets!

The boys jogged over to Bloom & Vine the next morning to pick up coffee and we spent the rest of the day exploring the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt. When we picked up our junior ranger books, we found out that a ranger program was about to start at Painted Canyon visitor center, right down the road. We made it over there in time to hear a presentation about bison conservation efforts in the park.

We drove around the park on the south unit scenic drive, slowly passing herds of bison and wild horses meandering across the roads, oblivious to vehicles. People have to stay a safe distance from bison, since they’re quite dangerous, but cars do not. Rachel was thrilled to see a few baby bison right outside her window. We took the children to Wind Canyon for a thrilling climb around natural rock “slides” and a stunning view of the Little Missouri River, where we were stopped by a suspicious park ranger on the lookout for vandals. We hiked the Ridgeline trail, and stopped for the most windy picnic lunch we’ve ever had (it was like eating in a dust storm). After lunch, Greg and the kids almost got blown off Buck Hill while I watched safely from below.





We saw the same family several times around the park, and finally ended up chatting with them. They had five children just like us. We’ve ended up keeping in touch and sharing our national park adventures. Since then we have had a sixth baby and our friends are now expecting another one too!

I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to North Dakota, but our time at Theodore Roosevelt was wonderful!

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