The Dakotas had some really Bad-Lands!

After Minnesota, we drove to Fargo, North Dakota.

Fargo is where Yankees great, Roger Maris is from.  My daddy might be a Red Sox fan and he really hates the Yankees, but he respects great players, regardless of who they played for.  They had a neat memorial at the campground that we stayed at in Fargo to honor Roger Maris and my daddy thought that was very cool.

Before we got to Lindenwood Campground, which is where we stayed at in Fargo, we went into downtown Fargo to go to the Fargo Arts Festival.  It was neat, I was allowed to walk around with mommy and daddy.  I did pretty good until I started to see all of the other dogs and then I started barking and daddy said that I was embarrassing him again, so he took me back to the house on wheels and he and mommy finished walking around.  I thought to myself, “Sometimes daddy embarrasses me too, and he doesn’t get sent back to the house on wheels.”

Anyway, after the festival, we went to the campground and got all set-up.  Once we were set-up, me and mommy and daddy went for a nice walk.  This was a really neat campground.  It was along the Red River, which is the river that separates Minnesota and North Dakota.  They had a neat bridge as part of the trail system in the park that allowed us to walk back to Minnesota.  I thought that was really neat that we were able to walk into Minnesota.  We met a fisherman along our walk and when he was getting his bait out, I thought that he was grabbing a treat for me, so I sat down real nice and cute, but mommy and daddy chuckled and said, “No buddy, that’s not a treat for you.”  I still think that I would have liked whatever he had.

The next morning, we got up pretty early and started to drive to Bismarck, North Dakota.

On the way to Bismarck, we stopped in Jamestown to see the World’s Biggest Buffalo.  It wasn’t real, but it was big!  The place that we stopped at was called Frontier Village.  It was neat because I got to walk around with mommy and daddy.  There weren’t any other dogs at that place, so I didn’t get sent back to the house on wheels.  I was even allowed to walk into the stores with mommy and daddy.  That was so awesome!  The one place had what looked like water bowls for me on the floor, but when I went to sniff it, daddy pulled me back and said, “Get out of there, that’s a spittoon.”  I don’t know what a spittoon is, but daddy really didn’t want me in that thing.

Once we got into Bismarck, we stayed at a KOA there for two nights.  I liked it there.  They had a neat trail that led to a school and a sports complex.  Daddy liked walking around the sports complex.  There weren’t even any games going on and daddy seemed to really like looking at empty baseball and softball fields.  I mean, I guess it brings back good memories for him or something.  I know he wrote about how he gets a peaceful feeling over him when he sees a baseball or softball field in his book.  I guess it must be in his blood.  Even when we’re driving, he points out every baseball and softball field that we pass to me and mommy.

Mommy just kind of says, “Yes, Honey, I see it.” to him when he does that.

When we left the campground in Bismarck, we went to a really neat park along the Missouri River to take a walk before we started driving to the next place that we were going to.  We walked a little over two miles before we got back into the house on wheels again and started to drive.

We drove for about four hours that day to get to McKenzie County Heritage Park and Museum, which was the Harvest Hosts location that we were staying at that night.

I was on a roll for the past few days, I was able to walk around and go into the buildings with mommy and daddy again!  I love when I get to do that sort of stuff!  I don’t care what we’re looking at as long as I’m with my mommy and daddy.

After that, we went to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  That was one of the coolest places that I had ever seen in my life!  If you haven’t been there, I strongly suggest that you go.  It is so neat!  They call these things The Badlands, but I thought that they were pretty good.  They were big and colorful and just absolutely one of the most awesome things that this pup has ever seen.  I can’t even really describe them to you, so you really have to go see them for yourself.

Shortly after we started driving in the park, mommy was complaining that we had seen a lot of bison poop, but no bison and that she was going to be really upset if we didn’t see any bison.  I didn’t even know what a bison was, so I didn’t see what all of the fuss was about.

Then, just like that, daddy said, “Look honey, there’s whole herd of them over here.”

Then that whole herd started to slowly stroll across the road right in front of our house on wheels.  I didn’t mind too much at first, but then one of those bison got like ten feet from our house on wheels and I started to gruff and growl a bit and was getting ready to bark and tell that guy to back off from our house on wheels, but daddy told me to, “Pipe down!”

I was just trying to let that bison know that I was the boss!  Daddy said that the bison would have whooped me, but I know that I would have been able to take that guy, I just know that I could have.

After the North Unit, we drove all the way down to the South Unit and drove through that as well.  That was just as neat.  Then we stayed in a little campground in the town of Medora.

Mommy and daddy really liked Medora a lot.  They went into the town a bunch of times while we were there and I went with them a couple times too.  It was a neat place.  One night we saw some deer just walking around the town and I didn’t even bark at them.

Mommy and daddy want to go back and volunteer in Medora next year.

After Medora, we went to South Dakota for a few days.

That was really neat too.  We went to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  Mommy and daddy really liked the Crazy Horse Memorial.  They spent a lot of time there and at the end of the night all three of us got watch a really neat laser light show on the side of the mountain while we sat in the house on wheels.

The next day, we got up really early and went to Badlands National Park in South Dakota to see the sun rise.  My mind was blown, I thought that only North Dakota had these Badlands things, but here they were again in South Dakota too.  As soon as we got into the park, we saw some more bison, not a whole herd, but a few.

Then we got to our first stop, we saw a whole bunch of big horn sheep.  Mommy and daddy wouldn’t let me out of the house on wheels because they thought that I would scare the big horn sheep, they were probably right, I guess.

We spent a long time in the Badlands Park and then we went to Custer State Park and saw a ton of bison there again.

Mommy and daddy liked the Crazy Horse Memorial so much that we went back there again after we went through Custer State Park.

Our last day in South Dakota, we went to Deadwood.  They had some nice trails around Deadwood and mommy and daddy and I took a nice walk there.  I got to dip my toes in a creek that was along the trail too.  Big win for me!  After our walk, mommy and daddy went into the old town and did their human “tourist like” things for a little while.

Our last stop in South Dakota, well, I guess it wasn’t really a stop, it was a drive down the Spearfish Canyon Scenic By-way.  It was really pretty along that drive.  There were big mountains and lakes and waterfalls and all kinds of tall trees too.

Mommy and daddy really like those kinds of drives.  They stop and take a lot of pictures on those drives and always talk about what a beautiful country God gave us.  I must say that I really do agree with mommy and daddy on that one.

After we drove through Spearfish Canyon, it was starting to get dark, so it was time for us to start to make our way off to Wyoming!

Although, we would just be driving through Wyoming this time on way to see mommy and daddy’s old friend, Ray Schell in Montana, but we’d get back to Wyoming soon enough!