North Dakataky!

After South Dakota we headed north and posted up right outside of  Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Our campground was in a small town called Medora. Never heard of it you say? I thought not either. Then I realized they are famous for their musical. Once I realized that, I remembered one of the guys in my first improv class in NYC was in the cast for a little while. Small world!  The town was a nice little western town with a few bars, restaurants and tourist shops. The first night there we hit the town for dinner and a drink. We chose to plop down in the Little Missouri Dining Room. They had an upstairs dining room and a bar downstairs. We of course picked the bar downstairs since it was more our style and upstairs was full of tourist kids. Blech. We ordered burgers, drinks, and listened to the classic country on the juke box.

While there, we spent hours talking with a guy at the bar. Turns out he was a lot -in fact almost too much- like me. He talked about his artistic creativity (he made barbwire sculptures) and how he would sell out of them at his mom’s store down the street. He said he could keep doing that and make good money, but once he did something creatively he wore it out and was on to the next thing. He and I fancy ourselves as idea guys. Which is basically a nice way of saying we are lazy but have bursts of creative genius that will never see the light of day. I’m working on changing that; not sure about him. We really enjoyed talking to him. Who wouldn’t when he would naively say things like, “My mom has the best nuts in town!” He wanted us to meet his daughter of our age and the guy she was dating whom he called “The Smooth Devil” because he was too good looking, and too nice of a guy for his daughter. He was obviously jealous. The human psyche is weird!

Eventually, the alcohol took hold and he started talking about conspiracy theories. He said he believed in a product called Ormus and how it can cure all ills. Of course I knew exactly what he was talking about because I’ve spent many nights going down the rabbit hole that is the internet. But I also know how to do a search for the same thing with the word scam in it. He rattled on for a while about many other theories from fracking, presidential assassinations, and the Illuminati. The minute he said “God Bless Putin!” we put our Twomerang business card back in our pocket and hit the road.

The next day, we headed to the park for a loop drive and some hiking. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is beautiful! It’s a lot like the Badlands, but with more greenery. We saw everything from bison, to prairie dogs, to rocks! Lots and lots of rocks. It’s another one of my favorite places on this trip so far.

We only spent a couple of days here taking in the sights before we headed west to Yellowstone. We stopped one night in a town called Reed Point, MT. And that’s all it was. A tiny little point on the map. The town is basically dead 364 days a year. They had an art gallery (closed), a library (open only on wednesday between 1pm and 3pm) and a bar that may have been open? The only thing keeping this thing going is the Post Office, which must account for 90% of the towns revenue. If you noticed, I said they were dead 364 days of the year. So I’m sure you are wondering, what about that other day? Well, that one day that it is bumpin’, they have a county famous sheep drive and people come from far and narrow to witness it. I think.

Jeena loved and hated this campsite. She loved how quaint and foreign it was. But she hated the giant horse that was in a pen across the street that would neigh and scream every now and again. (Jeena’s not a fan of huge animals.) All in all it was a good one night stop on our way to Yellowstone.

p.s. We’ve gotten into the habit of hitting eject on the cd players of our rental cars. So far we’ve gotten an Etta James greatest hits album. And on this trip, when I hit eject we got a great surprise. It was a CD obviously left by the artist as a way to promote himself. The album was called Mr. Howdy Do Dat. A Country/Rap Hixtape. Man if you like Country and Rap, this album is for you. No, it’s not. Either way, it was a nice little easter egg on our trip.