We're not sure if the sky really is bigger in Montana, but the roads sure are longer. After the second oil change of the trip, we headed east for about 400 miles of driving on Montana roads. To be honest, there wasn't a lot to look at for most of the trip, but at least we could drive fast. Towards the eastern edge of the state, we saw some very cool scenery that resembled the Badlands we saw earlier in South Dakota. We learned the next day that these rock formations contain many of the best dinosaur fossils found in the US. (On a related note, speaking of fossils, I read that Julio Franco signed with the Braves again this week.)

We finally crossed into North Dakota (state number 43 for Andrew!) and had a short drive until we reached the North Unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We drove to the campground to find about 10 other people total in the park. It's a pretty big place and to have it that empty was pretty awesome. We even had our own private bison jam on the way to the campground. Just us, and a dozen bison taking their sweet time to cross the road.

We set up camp and made dinner and attempted to do the park road drive before dark. I say attempted, because the bison had other ideas. Near the gate of the campground, the park's herd of bison was hanging out in the road, slowly moving towards us. We sat and watched them, and kept putting the car in reverse, as the animals kept moving close to the car.

We finally got an opening and headed through the herd to see the sights of the park. It was getting dark, but the views were still great and we saw a few more bison and deer in the park. During our hour drive, we saw a total of ONE OTHER car in the park. On the way back to the campground, we came around a turn in the road to see the largest bison we'd ever seen, snoozing on the edge of the road, maybe five feet from the car.

The bison were still in the campground when we returned, and we could hear them grunting throughout the night less than 100 yards from our decidedly non-bison proof tent.