Hank – Today we took is easy and checked out Medora and the park. There’s road construction in the park so we had to catch the pilot vehicle with our bikes. That saved us a couple of miles of climbing, which was nice. We saw a few wild horses and a couple of bison bulls while riding in the pilot car. No chance for photos though. The herd we saw was all females and and their calves. They were right next to a prairie dog town. We explored the town a little. Medora is the county seat. It’s also the only incorporated city within the county. Tomorrow we ride to Amidon, ND, which is also the county seat but it’s not an incorporated city. That’s how little this part of the state is populated.

We had an enjoyable easy day. Tomorrow we ride for Amidon and we’re hoping the winds aren’t completely against us and that we beat the thunderstorms to our night’s shelter.

Kathy –  We enjoyed our time relaxing today as we rode about the beautiful little quaint cow-boyish town of Medora, North Dakota. We also enjoyed our bike ride in Theodore Roosevelt National Park along with checking out their museum.  We had a bit of climbing regardless of the pilot car that took us between the two miles of road construction in the park.  By far it was a much more pleasant ride today than yesterday!  We met many nice local folks as well as out of towners that seemed just as nice.  We visited the Cowboy Hall of Fame Museum and I enjoyed window shopping at the many little gift shops in town.  Hank stated Medora seemed like a miniature version of Branson, Missouri.  Seems about right.

We didn’t go to the much publicized (and often asked about) Medora Musical production, much to many of the locals dismay.  Apparently it is a musical show about the towns claim to fame with Theodore Roosevelt coming here when he was in his mid twenties after his mother and wife died within a month of each other.  It was in Medora where he fell in love with this area’s landscape.  He was passionate about preserving the natural state of many park areas within the U.S. and to reduce their encroachment. Later after he became president he started the National Forest Service and preserved the land that now makes up many of our National and State Parks.  No doubt it would have been a good musical but we wanted to call it an early night since we are getting up to start riding at o-dark-thirty.  A good day was had by all.  🙂