We were swarmed by mosquitoes unhooking the MoHo, incredible!!! We've crossed the Missouri River and are rolling across the Great American Plains. There are some large wheat elevators beside the railways. This is the Little Missouri National Grasslands and believe me that is all you'll see. It is 1,200,000 acres of scenic prairie and badlands. These badlands, a rock bed left behind by an eastward-flowing river that once ran to an inland sea, stretching from Canada, south to the gulf of Mexico. It startled us to go around a curve, down the first hill and be in the badlands, rugged rock and gullies identical to Drumheller AB. It only lasted 10 miles and once again, flat land.
We passed the 1st of the three Theodore Roosevelt National Park sites. The 26th President of the U.S., he came here in 1833 to hunt bison, (buffalo), joined 2 others to start the Maltese Cross Ranch. He later started 2 more and started large conservative areas. we've also crossed the Lewis and Clark Trail, where they explored this area in 1804 - 1806m successfully partly by having an Indian woman, Sakakawea join, guide and teach survival techniques.
We had lunch at a widening in the road at Bowman and passed into S. Dakota by 1:45. same flat land but no evidence of cattle or ranching. Just very bare. Passed through Belle Fourche (beautiful fork) at the fork of the Belle Fourche and Red Rivers, it is the trading center for a tri-state agricultural area of 21,000 square miles. We had had Montana on our west, but now it's down to Wyoming. We're seeing big rolls of hay, even the highway side areas are used and cattle now and get down to Spearfish. We pulled into WalMart for the night. It was named for the Sioux and Cheyene Indians who speared fish in the creek that runs through the town. This creek is unusual as it freezes from the bottom up and runs south to north. Small industry, lumbering and tourism support this town
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