Not knowing the connection to dad would be so strong, we made our way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Maybe it was the frantic packing and getting the house ready, maybe it was the distracted way in which life moves with young children, but we arrived without spending much forethought of what we would find or how we would feel when there. Straddling the divide between mild regret for not reading and rereading some of T.R.’s stories and some of dad’s writing before arriving, he must have been inspired for much of his writing because their works are organized so similarly in thought, and enjoyment of the shock you get when you stumble upon the landscape rich with memory. Some my own and some imagined from the past. It was easy to see the mixture of delostation and the type of beauty that requires effort to survive, like the flowers pushing forward from the Prickly pear cactus up against the strong sunlight and low to the ground, buffeted against the wind.

“I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me.”

-T.R. on the North Dakota Badlands

We were able to walk through the first cabin that T.R. had built after his first visit out to the Badlands. It had originally been built seven miles farther south of the park but has since been moved multiple times to the World’s Fair and out to the Pacific Northwest before being reconstructed here next to the park visitor center. I could imagine sitting at the slanted writing table inside and looking out the windows in an effort to align the thoughts that would eventually be published. I distinctly remember seeing dad at the computer in front of the window in Grayson County, fiddling with a shell casing or worked stone or arrowhead while he collected his thoughts. Is that how everyone writes? Staring out into both the landscape and trying hard to remember the little details that were so easily forgotten. As I write this now I am taking breaks to look up at, and often past, the landscape. The Picture below shows Emrys and me out front and Leif at the doorway.

The boys, Kari, and I spent time driving and exploring the South Unit of the park and got to see Prairie dogs, Bison, deer, turkeys, pheasants, and so many songbirds. Early June was a wonderful time to be there with the cool rains and wind mixed with the hot sun.

We should have planned to spend more time here, but that also feels very similar to the story the Park Rangers told about how T.R. visited the area on a Bison hunt for ten days and almost immediately commissioned the cabin to be built because he had to come back. We have since left, and though we are only an hour’s drive to the west in Makoshika State Park in Montana, we are already trying to figure out how to go back and explore the North Unit.

As far as I know, dad never got to see this place, but I bet he would have loved it.

-Jesse