Day 5: A Full Day at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Yay for a vacation day! Rob had today as a vacation day, so we planned for a full day of exploring Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We started with four miles on the nearby Lower Paddock Creek trail through some very large prairie dog towns. We saw a wild horse and bison in the distance in addition to hundreds of prairie dogs. They are super cute, and Nicholas couldn’t take enough pictures of them.

Next up was the hour+ long drive to the North Unit of the park. We enjoyed the chance to cool off and relax after the first hike, as well as a picnic lunch in the car. Fortunately, we brought the Junior Ranger booklets with us, so the kids completed those on the drive. This is definitely the smaller, less visited side of the park. We did some shorter hikes, but the high 70s weather was quite warm in the mid afternoon, so no one had the energy to push through much more than that. We did see the Little Missouri River from the Caprock Coulee Trail and some super cool rock formations at the Cannonball Concretions Trail.

On the way back to the campground, we stopped by the South Unit visitor center again where the kids got their ranger badges and we checked out the Theodore Roosevelt museum again with Rob.

Our evening wrapped up with dinner and s’mores, followed by spotting bison in the campground. Nicholas saw a wild turkey with five babies yesterday, so Cooper and I are still holding out hope we will get to see them too before we leave tomorrow.