Medora, ND

Medora is North Dakota's #1 Destination (according to Medorand.com).  It is famous for the Medora Musical.  Jason had been as a kid, and we stayed in Medora last year on our way to Gackle, but the musical hadn't started yet.  We figured it would be a fun thing to take my parents to.  We loaded up the camper Friday morning and headed out.  We stopped in Bismarck to drop off a Miller Honey employee who was taking the bus home to CA for a couple weeks, ran a few errands, had lunch and then we were back on the road.  Medora is about 4 hours from Gackle.  We got to our campsite a little while before my parents and got things all set up.  It was not my favorite camping place.  I don't like when it is just a parking lot full of RV's.  I like to feel like we are "camping".  It was fine though.  It had a little store, playground and a pool nearby.

Max finishing off some chocolate milk.

That evening we had tickets for the pitchfork fondue steak dinner and the musical.  It had been threatening rain most of the afternoon and as we were leaving for the dinner there was a totally downpour with thunder and lightening.  It continued through the dinner, which had some covered seating, thank goodness.  The dinner was delicious.  We had heard some mixed reviews so we weren't sure what to expect.  The steaks were huge and we were glad that we only got one per couple.

Jason learning about cooking the steaks fondue style.  

It was pretty wet.

 Medora is part of the badlands, and it is so beautiful!

The outdoor stage.  We were worried that the show might be cancelled, but the rain let up and it ended up being a really nice evening.  

 Jason got us pretty good seats which was nice.  

The musical features a live band and the burning hills singers.  They sing country music while telling about the history of North Dakota.  There was a featured group High Voltage that did hip hop dancing and acrobatics after intermission, and then back to the singing.  It was a really fun show to watch. Lots of North Dakota pride. Jason (very willingly) took the boys back to camp at intermission and put them to bed since it was way past their bedtime.  

Saturday we went into Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We drove the loop and stopped along the way to hike and look for animals.  Theodore Roosevelt is talked about a lot in Medora.  I think because he was the only famous person to really LOVE North Dakota.  

My boys always pick me flowers.  It is really sweet, I wish I had a way to preserve them.

We came around a corner to find this bison just walking in the middle of the road.  He kindly moved to the side and we drove by very slowly, checking him out.  He was HUGE.

We came back to the camper for lunch and then my parents took off to see some other things that we decided would be pretty boring for the kids.  I took a nap and Jason took the kids swimming.  After that we headed into Medora to walk around the cute downtown area.  

We stopped in a general store and Max tried on some hats. 

 That afternoon they had their 4th of July parade again since there were lots of people there for the weekend.  We got a good spot and the kids had tons of fun running out and getting candy.  Since they were in the Gackle parade they didn't get to do that on the fourth.

Diya and Ollie making silly faces.

 We ate ice cream while we waited for the parade.

We walked around after the parade and the kids played on a cool playground they have there.  Max had filled the pockets of his shorts with tons of candy (to the point that his shorts were falling down).  Although we had asked him many times not to eat it, the temptation was just too great and we eventually had to take the candy from the baby :(  It was pretty devastating.  You can see the green candy drool dripping from his mouth.  

Jason had dropped his bike off at this cook bike shop in Medora to have it tuned up.  We visited with them awhile and shared stories of the touring cyclist we had all met.  We checked out the other campground in Medora, which was more picturesque, but right on the river so I'm sure the mosquitos were horrific.  I'm not sure if the trade off would be worth it.  I hate mosquitos.  Then we came back to camp and started dinner.  Jason made some pretty delectable hamburgers, mom made broccoli salad and we had corn on the cob.  It was SO good.  Such a summer meal.  

Jason used the wrong side of the salt shaker and ended up ruining his corn with too much salt.  So sad.

After dinner my dad played war with Ollie and my mom read Max a book.  After the kids went to bed my parents left for Rapid City, SD.  They spent Sunday visiting Mt. Rushmore, Crazyhorse, and Custers National Park.  They drove back to Minneapolis on Monday and flew out that night.  We were sad to see them go, but they assured us they would be back to visit ND.

Anther selfie, this time his face is covered in corn...haha.

Max wearing Papa's glasses.

Each night our boys were pretty beat.  Max still sleeps with his little bum in the air sometimes.  I loved when he did it as a baby and love it just as much when he does it as an almost 3 year old.

Sunday morning we got up and attended this cute little Lutheran church.  Jason and I enjoy visiting other churches.  It was interesting because this pastor kept talking about "the mormons".  Luckily he had mostly good things to say :)

It was pouring rain when we woke up that morning and continued after church, so we took a little drive since we didn't want to hook the camper up in the rain.  We drove to the Bully Pulpit golf course which is apparently ranked one of America's top 100 public golf courses (again, according to Medora's website).  

 After that we headed back to our camp.  The rain eventually died down and led to sunny skies.  We had to throw all our camping chairs and big camping rug in the camper and then set them up to dry them out once we got back to Gackle.  It was a great weekend.  Next weekend we are looking forward to staying home and laying low.  We have been busy.  When we got home Sunday night we had four cyclists sitting at our picnic table and two more showed up later.  For the first time people had to set up tents in our yard because the basement was full.  We have a group of seven coming Thursday night and I think six on Friday night.  It is a lot of fun to meet all these interesting people biking across the country.