Sorry for the MAJOR delay on the posts....no internet and I wasn't about to attempt to do this on my iPhone.
Day 5 was a HUGE adventure.
We woke up all the students early to explore the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I was told by Medora residents that the best time of day to see the animals in the park was early or at dusk. Obviously dusk wouldn't work for us due to the fact that we were heading back east, so we opted for early in the morning.
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| George worshiping the clay gods....tehe |
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| Exploring nature in the park :D |
Needless to say the students weren't overly thrilled with being up early but as soon as we started driving they lightened up a bit. The weather was windy and cold so we didn't spend a lot of time out of the car. It was pretty chilly.
We started off and took pictures at the prairie dog colony. We have a few students who adore prairie dogs so we had to stop.
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| Prairie Dogs! |
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| Group Shot! |
After that we just wandered the park, stopping when we saw wildlife like deer, bison, and wild horses. The students got really good at spotting the wildlife :D
At one point we stopped to take a group shot and just as we were about to load up into the van a heard of wild horses started running by. It was pure magic. We all starred and oohed and aahhed.
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| Jumping for Joy in the Badlands |
The bummer came when we were just 11 miles to Medora and we ran into road construction....major road construction! The kind of road construction where we had to turn around and go all the way back the other way :( For those that don't know, the state park has a route you can take that goes in a big loop throughout the park. We were over 3/4 through the loop when we had to turn back and redo the whole loop.
BONUS: We decided to stop and explore some of the 'views' that are a little ways off the main road. One in particular, Buck Hill, was a complete shot in the dark and when we arrived at the top there was a HUGE herd of buffalo! It was so cool. Needless to say we again ooohed and aaahed and took tons of pictures.
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| Look what we found! |
Finally we found Medora once again. We gassed up quickly and headed back towards Wahpeton. They were pretty knocked out for a major part of the road trip back.
Eventually we made it back to Wahpeton and I decided to take them to the Kidder Dam and recreational area. It's a pretty spot and they could meet Whopper, the world's largest catfish :D The students saw Salem Sue...the worlds largest cow and the worlds largest buffalo near Jamestown...so of course they HAD to meet Whopper. They also took a pic with the Wahpeton sign so they could prove they had been to both sides of ND.
After some fun pics we met up with my Dad and Judy for dinner. The students couldn't spend a night in Wahpeton and not eat at the Fryin Pan...it's a Wahpeton must :D
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| Admiring the Red River |
We all ate well, some of the students experimented with lemons...always enjoyable ;) and finally we went to Dad's house to relax and make akutaq. Some of the students were feeling homesick so we went and bought the necessary ingredients to make their favorite....akutaq or Eskimo Icecream. Dad also had salmon strips left over so they had salmon and akutaq. There were a lot of happy faces that night AND the students had the bright idea to share akutaq with the students they were going to teach NYO to tomorrow.
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| Before lemon... |
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| After lemon...tehehe |
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| Making akutaq at Upii's |
All in all a long day but it ended with a lot of satisfied smiles. They really enjoy spending time with their new Upii (aka Grandpa...aka Dad :D )
Tomorrow is NYO DAY!
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