TRNP - North Unit (Or: My Family Comes For A Visit)

My little brother is going to college this fall, tear.  On the way out to drop him off, my parents stopped by for the day to check out our new home.  After driving around and showing them the craziness that is western North Dakota we ended up at Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  I had been wanting to check it out since we moved out here but had not gotten a good chance. Mom and I stopped at the visitor center for some information, planned our route and picked up some information.  We also got a backpack that had additional guide books and binoculars.

We chose an easy trail with a paved section that we could take the stroller on.  Dad had the guide book and pointed out the interesting points along the trail.  Grace and Micah were in charge of finding the markers.  Grace loved looking for tracks!  We found buffalo, deer and mountan lion tracks. Because of the extremely wet spring, tracks were impressed clearly along the path and in the sand by the river. 

Grace was pretty excited when she thought she found tracks, some were tracks, some were just lumps in the mud.  She took the binoculars at the begining of the walk and whenever we would point out something along the path she would look at it through them.  Most of the time the thing she was looking at was only a couple feet, or inches, away.  It was pretty funny to watch her be so serious about looking through the binoculars for something right in front of her face! 



Here is a good buffalo track we found right on the path.  Once we started looking for them they were everywhere!  Mom and Grace even found several really clear mountain lion tracks on another path.  The rangers at the welcome center said they hadn't seen any yet this year so they were pretty excited. 

Grace hunting for tracks

After we got back in the van to drive home we had to drive back past the trail we had just been walking on.  As we looked back at the trail a buffalo came walking across the area.  I'm kind of glad that it didn't decide to walk through there while we were walking around with my little kids!  It was just meandering through the grass then walked up on the road.  He followed us slowly, walking very carefuly down the center line, for quite a while.  It was pretty exciting!

I'm glad some of my family was able to come see where we live, I think it made my mom feel better about us living out here.  Maybe someday we will go visit David out at college too!