Holy Buffalo!!!

We did it. We did what everyone says you HAVE to do if you are stationed at Minot. We left Minot. Not for good, just for a quick 3-day weekend of sorts. We travelled to North Dakota's number one tourist attraction, Medora. We didn't partake in the Bully Pulpit golf course or the Chateau de Mores, any of the horse back riding or even the famous musical. Heck, we didn't even go for the pitchfork steak fondue. What we did do was far more like what you would expect the Matt and Kat of 2005 to do: we camped.

Our travels were largely uneventful.
I drove.

Kat photographed.

We arrived.

We arrived early at the campground and were the first and only tent campers. After picking the very best spot, we started assembling our site.

While I was putting up our new tent, Katherine unloaded the car and took care of the essentials.

Before it got too dark we were able to go scout out the next day's hiking trail head. When we pulled up, while there were no other cars, we were certainly not alone. HOLY BUFFALO!!! No more than 80 feet away was a single buffalo just chillin'. Katherine freaked out, then took some pictures.

Oh, and there were prairie dogs too. LOTS of prairie dogs.

We ended the day with a perfect view, a comfy home, some great food, and some relaxation ladder-ball style.

After a good night's rest we woke up and before we could even get back to the trail head this happened:

7 feet from the car!!

So we FINALLY got to the trail head and started our hike.

We made great time and after a whopping 400ft down the trail we saw 3 horses playing.

So we went up the hill to see if they were still there and instead we met Katherine's nightmare:

These buffalo were only about 400 feet away. Even I was a little wary of some of the bigger ones. So we went off trail to avoid any beef with the buffalo. On our way back to the trail we ran into buffalo herd number 2. THIS guy was about 70 feet from us. He was just as shocked to see us as we were to see him. We took advantage of his shock to calmly (kinda) walk a wide circle around him and what turned out to be his 30 or so closest buffalo buddies.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, we could just see buffalo herd number three coming up the next ridge.

Shown next are some beautiful scenic photos Katherine was able to take standing quite still while I went ahead to find a path decidedly buffalo-free.

From here on out we were much more buffalo and worry free. It was refreshing to see a more scenic and beautiful side of North Dakota. Even more exciting was the topography.

As the hike wore on we happened across a very rude buffalo that was walking along our trail just a little bit slower than we were. Our options were to quit, risk walking too close to him, or go around him and up one of several large hills. We went with option three, but by the time we made it to the top we were beat. We stopped for a quick lunch break then headed back to the car.

We made good time on the way back and saw a bird hunting and several prairie dogs on the way.

To our surprise, when we got back to the car, all three herds of buffalo had converged about 800 ft from the parking lot. When we got back to the car we were filthy and exhausted but had a great hike.

We drove around the outside of the whole park to catch any last scenery we might have missed.

Of course, we couldn't make it out of the park without seeing one last buffalo, only 30 ft from the road.

Brats and s'mores for dinner and another game of ladder-ball wrapped up our last evening at the campground.

Before we left in the morning we packed up all of our gear, did a quick shopping loop through town, and played a quick round of mini-golf. It was a great relaxing 3 day break. So relaxing in fact that Katherine decided that she needed a break from it and ran off to the beach and Virginia for two weeks, but that is her next blog.
-matt