Spring finally arrived in North Dakota. There must be a huge vacuum apparatus in Iowa because most of our topsoil seems to be headed that way. I cannot recall so many days with wind in excess of 30 mph in one month. But it was calm the day I took this photo of some school kids posing on the front steps of the State Capitol Building.
I had several hearings scheduled at the Department of Transportation for a Wednesday. Then the attorney who represented the clients in all of the cases asked for a continuance. I obliged, leaving me with a Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday free. Jack Kline and took advantage of the situation by heading to the south unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park.
Once we got my tent set up [Yes, I remembered the poles this time], we drove into Medora and had a cool one along with some food at the Iron Horse Saloon. On the north wall of the bar, a print of Jack's scratchboard portrait of his father hangs on the wall. I took the photo below at one of Jack's art shows a couple of years ago. His dad was known by friends as "Killer."
We headed back to our campsite and were waiting for the sun to get a bit lower in the sky before taking a loop through the park hunting with our cameras. While we were passing the time, we had a couple of large visitors.
The buffalo have the run of the place as I've seen very few fences inside the park. As we watched, two buffalo sauntered toward us.
If it looks like this bull was pretty close, it is because he was! No zoom needed here. I was standing on a tree stump and made like a statue.
Meanwhile, his partner, another old bull, came around the back of our campsite, sniffed Jack's coolers and then moseyed toward the river in the background. Once our party crashers left, we hopped in Jack's van and headed out.
This sharp-tailed grouse was invisible to me. Luckily, Jack has a keen eye, always spotting critters and pointing them out.
I would have missed this mule deer, too, if Jack hadn't alerted me to it.