Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We’re slowly working on visiting all National Parks and RVing in every state. But a stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and nearby Dickinson, North Dakota was special for me because it’s where my Grandpa was born and raised.

We had a dry campsite at Cottonwood Campground inside the park booked for the week of Labor Day. Luckily as soon as we arrived and dropped the trailer, we drove the scenic loop, visited some overlooks, and saw a lot of animals because a few hours later an apocalyptic amount of wildfire smoke showed up and settled in for several days. We only spent one night dry-camping before moving to an RV park so that we could run our AC.

During his presidency, Teddy Roosevelt established the US Forest Service and the National Monument designation and protected over 230 million acres of land. He credited time spent hunting and cattle ranching in North Dakota for his groundbreaking conservation efforts and the namesake national park was created in 1947 to honor him.

The park is particularly known for its wildlife. We saw wild horses, bison, and prairie dogs.

Toward the end of the week, the air cleared and we got a chance to walk around the towns of Medora and Dickinson. Adjacent to the park, Medora is a highly curated town that looks like a movie set. They are known for the summer nightly Medora Musical that tells TR’s life story.

I don’t think I have any family that currently lives in Dickinson and we weren’t sure what to do in a non-touristy town so we just had a beer at the local microbrewery and tried to remember things that my Grandpa had told me about his childhood. It was fun to see where that horse-owning cowboy-hat-wearing big personality who loved the West came from.