Wild Horses

I slept fitfully last night, disturbed by the clod parked next to us who carried on a conversation with a friend under my bedroom window at 10:30 pm. He then proceeded to pack up his rig for an early morning get-away and I could hear him slamming cabinets over and over as he put things away. The last I heard was the slam of his door before he pulled out of the park at 4:00 am. Honestly, some people have no clue.

Despite that, Bob and I were up bright and early this morning and entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park at 7:15 am in the hopes of glimpsing more animals. It was a perfect morning. We saw many buffalo, both up close by the side of the road as well as from a distance.

And we were very lucky to see several small herds of wild, or feral (as the National Park Service calls them) horses. I was most excited to see a mare with markings typical of the horses bred by the Indians. These horses are dark in color and have a white patch around the belly as well as a white face. This color pattern, called an "apron," may be familiar from the paintings of Frederic Remington and C.M. Russell, but is seldom seen in modern horses. These particular horses are descendents of the original herd from the mid 1800s.

This mare had her foal nearby, who may develop the white roan belly markings upon maturity.

According to Brian, the park ranger who gave a talk at the visitors center about Roosevelt's Maltese Cabin, there are 167 feral horses in this park. They are rounded up every couple of years and some are sold to the public, which helps control the numbers. The bison are also rounded up and the park both sells to and buys from breeders all over the US, in order to avoid too much inbreeding in the herd.

Ranger Brian's talk about TR's cabin was very interesting. Roosevelt was a city boy from NYC when he came to North Dakota on a hunting trip at the age of 25 to shoot a buffalo. Later he became a supporter of preservation of our natural resources. Roosevelt returned to North Dakota after the deaths of his wife (from complications of childbirth) and his mother (from typhoid) in the same house and on the same day. The wilds of the Badlands healed him, and Roosevelt returned to New York ready for a career in politics. He credited his time in ND with preparing him for the rigors of the presidency. As Vice President, he became our 26th President following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. He was, and remains, our youngest President, entering the office at 42 years of age.

This area is so beautiful. The Little Missouri River, that flows into the Missouri River, runs past the campground and through the national park.

Later today we plan to walk around town, and tomorrow we may take a hike.