My last stop on my trip west was at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. I spent part of a day in the South unit of the park near Medora. It’s definitely a park I want to revisit. By this point in the trip I”d been on the road for 2+ weeks and was getting rather tired. So when the weather wasn’t very good I spent more time than usual at my hotel curled up with a book rather than out exploring and photographing.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park has the wonderful combination of spectacular scenery and lots of history. Located in the badlands of North Dakota, this is the place that helped shape many of Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas about conservation and nature.

One of the great surprises for me at the park was the wild horses. Like the ponies at Chincoteague, these horses aren’t native to the area – instead they are descended from escaped domesticated horses. There is currently a herd of up to 110 feral horses in the park. I was lucky enough to see several of them in a fog bank early in the morning.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

I did find several wildflowers to photograph at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Since the environment was so different in Roosevelt than in the other parks I visited, it was nice to see some more new-to-me wildflowers

Gumbo Lily – Oenothera caespitosa – a member of the evening primrose family

© 2011 Patty Hankins

Scarlet gaura – Gaura coccinea – another member of the Evening Primrose family

© 2011 Patty Hankins

Leafy spurge – Eupohrobia esula – a non-native member of the spurge family. Leafy spurge is native to Europe and Asia. It arrived in the US in the early 19th century and has since spread across much of the northern part of the country. The USDA has declared leafy spurge to be an invasive species. It is an aggressive toxic plant that once established very difficult to eliminate.

© 2011 Patty Hankins

My current plans for 2012 trip west have me visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park on my way west – rather than on my way back home. So hopefully I’ll be more ready to do some serious photography there on my next visit! 🙂