DAY 19 : July 25/22 Monday. Medora ND Night#2
Nice slow morning. It’s hot again today, so we made a plan to hang out this morning, I’d do laundry, then we’d go to the city pool when it opened at 1pm to keep cool. After the swim we’d have fish tacos and walk into town to look in shops, then do the Point to Point Trail hike up the butte at the edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. A great little plan.
The morning consisted of me doing laundry, walking to the river edge just beside our campground with Amelia (it was warm and murky and shallow), and Oliver went to the office and bought a new boomerang for himself and was careful where he threw it. Kids caught grasshoppers, trapped them for a bit in a salad container, named them and then released them.
By 1pm we were definitely ready to cool down at the little outdoor city pool. We walked along the sidewalk the short distance to the pool and were bombarded by grasshoppers of all shapes and sizes as we walked. They literally threw themselves in front of us and on us as we walked. The little gnats annoyed Jonathan the most. It was funny and a tiny bit disconcerting how many hoppers there were along such a small stretch. You could feel them hitting you and jumping off your legs and arms and hat.
The pool was $4/person and you could basically swim, leave for a break and come back later if you wanted. It was a decent sized pool to have fun in and we were the first customers. Another small group of 4 young adults showed up and then one more family. Kids had fun using their snorkel masks and diving for rings, etc. We all felt much refreshed to be in the cool (but not cold) water. We stayed from 1-2:30pm at the pool.
We stopped in a gift shop that was closed last night, and it sold lots of Pendleton Wool products with a south western pattern on them. Amelia really liked a purse in this shop and we decided she could think about it and come back before 6pm if she wanted to buy it. The next shop we went in, we found and bought a handful of postcards, and Ollie found a pocket knife he really liked. I walked Amelia back to the first shop to buy her special purse with the USD gift money she was given. A lovely memento of North Dakota, and a neat purchase. When we got back to the other shop, Oliver was really hankering to buy one of the knives he’d seen. We figured he could use his USD gift money for it, and he had three that he really liked. He settled on one with a Bison picture on it as a neat memento.
Satisfied with our purchases, we went to the little playground again for another play and hoping the sun’s rays would start to tone down a bit. It was already after 6pm and starting to cool down relatively speaking.
Kids liked seeing the wild cactus on the route.
climbing up the Butte!
This ladder was quite a feat to climb up... very steep and went on for a long time.
At the top of the butte, the scenery was amazing. Those black clouds in the distance were looking extremely ominous. We were about half way around the trail along the top of the butte when we could hear the thunder and see lightening. All of a sudden the winds kicked in, and it was clearly time to evacuate the top trail and get back down into town. With the wind whipping us, we started to run across the top butte trail, clinging our hats to our heads. We had left all our towels out to dry, and our awning up on the rig (it was hot and sunny when we left) and Jonathan was worried our brand new awning was going to get ripped off in the wind. By this time the rain was starting up a bit and he took the keys from me to run ahead and back to the campground in an attempt to save the awning. I hurried along the trail with the kids to try and get back down before things got too crazy. We got the the ladder and decided the wind was too strong and rain was too crazy for us and it might be better to walk the red trail in an attempt to find the "bailout" route. After getting pelted with rain and being blown sideways into the side of the hill, this route wasn't proving to be very good and the mud on the narrow trail was turning to slipper clay with prickly bushes and cactus on either side of us! We turned back and braved the ladder. I went first, then Amelia and Ollie. I gave them the WCB talk of always having three points of contact on the ladder, etc and we made our way down. The wind wasn't as awful in this stretch, but the rain was crazy. Soaked and shaky, we were happy to be at the bottom of the ladder and slipped and slid our way down the rest of the windy goat path. That's when we heard Jonathan shouting our names from the town below. We managed to wave to him and slid our way to the entrance to the trail, which now had a new sign planted on it saying, "Trail Closed Due to Mud". Our shoes were caked with clay and soaked through, along with the rest of our clothes. The town was empty of people, and the gutters were overflowing with water as we reunited with Jonathan who reported in that the awning seems to have collapsed itself and seemed intact. He had ridden back on his bike to find us.
Reunited with Jonathan... soaked through and happy to have made it down the butte safely!
SO MUCH RAIN in such a short time! We made it through our epic hike safe and sound with a lot more laundry to do!
Well deserved super hot chocolate
The owl we saw tonight beside our RV.
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