North Unit, Theodore Roosevelt NP.....Sunday 13th July

Today we have driven back along the I-94 and then north on the 85 for 52 miles to the entrance of the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP....the North Unit is quite different from the South Unit even though it is still the badlands of ND and as we are down at river level seems more dramatic...
This rock face was really interesting, they call these "balls" of rock Cannonball Concretions. The spherical holders are formed within the rock by the deposition of minerals around a core and then are exposed as erosion takes place...strewth my mind is alive and it's still only 7.30 am, well actually I am reading from my notes !! I digress, it was quite fascinating...

More of the rock face, the "balls" tumble down the gullies....

Same rock face, this reminds us of an oak bean lintel, rather like petrified wood....

Rock face from a distance.....

Still a large variety of wild flowers and plants blooming, of course there is the ever present sweet yellow clover with it's heady fragrance....

In this particular area there were hundreds of Dragonflies......not sure why just this area.....

This viewpoint was particularly dramatic, as well as the view across the valley it shows a good example of Bentonitic Clay, the grey clay that tops the mesa....

We are now, for a few hours, in The Central Time Zone. ..Yorkieman is concerned we might be late home for his evening drink !!! 

The Little Missouri River winding through the park...

Same stunning valley but showing one of the old shelters built during the depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps and Emergency Relief Administration. This was a national program to give employment to men and accomplish conservation projects such as building roads, trails, shelters and campgrounds.....

A lone bison...we did see large herds of bison on the flat grassland plateau toward the end of the scenic drive but too far away to photograph.....

On our way back to the entrance/exit of the park....Longhorn Cattle cross our path just right for a few pics !!

Another good day, a longish drive but worth it....the 85 North is another straight 65 mph road....even though it was Sunday  it was still very busy with oil field construction trucks....
It is, as in UK, very controversial here that the oil companies are using the "fracking" method of extracting the oil 2 miles beneath the ground......
The Bakken Field is huge, covering parts of Montana and Canada as well as North Dakota....previously the oil was unobtainable but with fraking, billions of barrels of oil are being extracted....this has brought employment to North Dakota but also the environmental issues and concerns to The National Parks Service.....to set up each new well and to start pumping requires 2000 "trucking events"...."nodding donkeys" litter the landscape among the fields of wheat and barley.....