NORTH DAKOTA !

 Here's our journey so far. As you can see, we're way behind in the blog entries as we're up in the NE part of Wisconsin - Door Country. 

Going into North Dakota, we saw Theodore Roosevelt National Park, had a terrific hours-long lightning storm, Dakota Zoo in Bismark, went to the Peggy Lee Museum, took some walks, went kayaking and saw great vistas.

Years ago, we went to Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and Arches in Utah/Arizona. The colors and majesty were spectacular. So, when we came here for the first time, we were underwhelmed. But, this time, we decided to forget all that past and just enjoy it. Sure glad we did because it is gorgeous!

If you're into geology, this place is fabulous!!

Close up of the layers of soil deposited over millions of years...some thin, some thick.

We call ourselves Dr. Kim and Dr. Steve....eminent doctors of geology

Some scary looking clouds arriving but how bad can it be?

We are right in the center here

A closer look. Each of those yellow things are lightning strikes. Notice the 0.1 miles was the closest strike. This went on for 3 hours! Fortunately, it was mostly cloud-to-cloud lightning and it moved north of us so we could watch it from a distance.

We took in the small Dakota Zoo in Bismarck. Cute place. You could go through it in a little over an hour. Of course, we took more than that...until the heat drove us back to our air-conditioned car.

Fleet-footed pronghorns are among the speediest animals in North America. They can run at more than 53 miles an hour, leaving pursuing coyotes and bobcats in the dust. Pronghorns are also great distance runners that can travel for miles at half that speed. We see these all over the west.

Here's four Pronghorns in the wild with one young one.

A couple of Marsupials...very cute

Some male bonding going on here in the TR NP.

Free range is all over North Dakota

What? I'm not going fast enough for you?

Kayaking outside of Bismarck, ND. Clouds are just so neat to look at. I belong to the Cloud Appreciation Society. Check it out sometime. 
https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

Love the colors of the pollen on the water

It seems that we never think the kayak day will be memorable...just another getting-out-on-the-water trip. But....then...a couple of Canada Geese families and a bunch of singles too come into view.

We'll do Peggy Lee Museum and more on the next entry.

Hope you like all of North Dakota. Great state.

The obligatory Katie photo. Every morning ...and I mean every morning, Katie comes over to get scritched on my lap. Then she lays down on my legs to take a nap while I check email and read. Think she likes it?

steve/kim/katie