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Sun. May 5th: Cowboys, Vistas, and Pirates

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<– Day 1 – Sat. May 4th: Miracle of America Museum, Polson, MT | Trip Overview | Day 3 & 4 – Mon. May 6th & Tues. May 7th: Bismarck, North Dakota –>

UPDATE: Busted!  On our way out of the National Park we spotted the ‘pirates’ car off to the side in a parking area parked by itself. We believe they were arrested and their car left there, because there was no sign of them 🙂

2013-05-05-montana-ndakota-TRNP-david-ann-overlookOur goal for today (Sunday)  was to reach Theodore Roosevelt National Park at the western edge of North Dakota. Since we spent most of our time driving through Eastern Montana, I’d love to share that experience with you, but I had my nose buried in my computer, so I didn’t see much. Occasionally, Ann would point out something of interest and I would look up. But, I had my reading glasses on, so everything looked pretty blurry beyond the car. However, the weather was beautiful and sunny, the temperatures a perfect seventy degrees. Fortunately, she didn’t see too much interesting either. Just lots of rolling grassy hills. I can see why cowboys like it here.

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We saw this sign at a rest stop

I have to say that I will gladly take those endless grassy hills and the sunny weather over last week’s weather along I-94: it was closed due to a blizzard. Yikes!

Around 3:30pm we reached the campground at the National Park. We found a nice campsite and got it set up, before touring the 25(?) miles long loop trail.

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The TR National Park is known for its Badlands, its bison, its grasslands and its solitude. We got a bunch of each. We meandered along the road, running into Bison every mile or so. After driving for a while, we found Buck hill, which yielded some beautiful vistas.

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By the time we had driven an hour, we neared the end of the loop when we encountered the pirates. One pirate stuck out from the top of the silver ship (read cheap compact Mazda(?)). Her hair blew in the wind as she cheered her man pirate to victory. On the other side of the road was an idiot waving a flat stick the size of a broad sword at a group of Bison. Now, when you see stuff like that happening, you have to ask your self, is it really happening? But, yes, it kept going. The idiot with the sword was waving it at the bison and trying to get them to move back so the female pirate could get his photograph. Satisfied they’d gotten the shot, the idiot pirate turns around and throws the sword at the bison.

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One of the South Dakota Pirates. I took a lousy picture, but it still helped the police.

Well, we’d had enough of that show. Ann and I finally reached the two idiots, kids in their early 20s, and told them to knock that S&*T off. Those idiots start flipping us off and yelling back. So, we snapped some pictures of them and bee-lined it straight to the camp host (the park ranger’s office was closed). We got the sheriff and state patrol to show up. That’s when we learned that the pirates had three other complaints against them. (We also learned that every time you enter and exit the park, a camera snaps your picture).

So, we’ll likely never know what happened to the pirates. At least we made new friends with the camp hosts. It was only their first full day, so it was quite exciting for them!

No other updates, because I have no electricity and the wireless is slow here, so I’m not responding to emails over the next 12 hours.  We will be heading to Bismark tomorrow where I’ll get some posts done, etc. We’ll be in St. Paul following that for two days on Wednesday and Thursday.

<– Day 1 – Sat. May 4th: Miracle of America Museum, Polson, MT | Trip Overview | Day 3 & 4 – Mon. May 6th & Tues. May 7th: Bismarck, North Dakota –>

 

5 Comments on “Sun. May 5th: Cowboys, Vistas, and Pirates

  1. Don

    Sounds like you are having a fun trip. I live in Minneapolis and if you have time when in St Paul I could show you my 1963 Jeep (Don’s auto and farm service).

  2. Kerry

    “On the other side of the road was an idiot waving a flat stick the size of a broad sword at a group of bison”

    If given enough time Darwins Laws of selection would have soon kicked in and solved that problem, but then someone would have to clean the mess up

  3. Mr. Chum bucket

    I do not understand what the issue was until you took it upon yourselves to make it a problem. If you have to micro-manage, do it at your own home but leave people alone instead of being a control freak and bothering everyone else. It is people like you that just cannot keep their F-in nose out of what other folks are doing. Mind your own business. What is wrong with you. Hard to believe you cry-babies had to make a complaint to the sheriff and I wondered what he thought when you two a-holes came up and blubbered about someone waving a stick at a herd of bison. I mean, really????? you had to take a picture. Life must have been unkind to both of you. Good thing you married each other. Hard to imagine what living hell you be to someone else. Oh and when I see a flock of chickens next time driving, I will honk my horn at them.

  4. Deilers

    How very brave of you to troll the Internet anonymously. The fact that you do not understand what you did speaks volumes. Perhaps some day you will understand.

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