We woke up at the campground on the north side of the park - weird feeling for two who don't normally do the campground thing - and took a walk to see the river we were camped near.
Before we headed out we took advantage of the trash, water and sewer dump stations that we had 'paid' for - yet another foreign entity x 3.
On our way out of the park there was a traffic jam.
They were in no hurry and neither were we.
Eventually they did find their way off of the road and on a different path to their destination.
Between the north and south sides of the park just off of the main highway is an overlook that is actually part of the park.
When we stopped we discovered we had picked up a hitchhiker at the campground. He is most likely an underwing moth although he wasn't interested in showing us his under-wings.
The overlook is called painted canyon and is a pretty lookout point.
Felt like you could see for miles.
The south side of the park seems to be more hiking focused with what seemed to us to be less pull-outs and ways to stop and view things.
We were not in a hiking mood so we focused our efforts more on the prairie dogs.
Cute little boogers were fun to watch.
Though they were quite comfortable with all of the people and cars and rarely paid us any mind.
What? I'm just relaxing here in my hole!
It was a warm day so we zipped through the loop and then headed out to our anticipated boondocking spot by a lake hoping to cool off somewhat.
Our view at the lake. We parked next to a tree to get some shade on Annie and then put our chairs in Annie's shadow to get some shade on ourselves.
We wandered around and saw a Chickweed Moth,
several Crescent
Butterflies,
this Long-horned bee - Melissodes tepaneca
and have you ever wondered why they call them 'Cliff Swallows'? It was pretty neat to see so many holes.
Well, that concludes our time in North Dakota, our 48th contiguous state.
Onward down the road we roam but before that here's a brief video from Theodore Roosevelt National Park.