Back to the National Park and Medora Musical: Thursday, July 1st
It’s July already?! The weeks seem to be speeding up, only 6 weeks of our journey left; we’re not ready to be finished yet – already planning the next one!
The children went off to play on the tennis courts quite early in the morning to avoid the heat and later, we enjoyed a quiet afternoon until Dave finished work. As we had been able to exchange our tickets for a repeat performance of the Medora Musical this evening, we persuaded the younger two to rest, instructing them that they could not come out until 3:25pm at the earliest – yep, dead on 3:25, they appeared – clearly Nate has learned his number recognition very well this year!
We drove out to the National Park again to complete a couple more short hiking trails and have the kids sworn in as Junior Rangers. As we drove around a corner, there were two wild horses prancing in the middle of the road, totally unperturbed by our arrival, they just carried on as if we weren’t there! All of us were staring out of the window, Dave was able to drive slowly around them but they didn’t move out of the roadway at all, just ignored us completely.
The first hike was the steep Ridgeline Nature trail. This one was not dissimilar to Coal Vein Trail that we did a couple of days earlier; it highlighted a few of the same informational tidbits, focusing on ecology.
Driving along, Dave spotted a mule deer disappearing into the valley, he jumped out for a photo; we never get tired of spotting wildlife!
The second was the short Wind Canyon Nature Trail. This led us on a walk up a ridge, leading to a fantastic view of the Little Missouri River and the wind-sculpted canyon; it was wonderful, I think we could have foregone either of the others just in favor of this – so if you’re visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park and your time is brief, take this little wander up the hill, most definitely worth the view.
On the drive out, we spotted a lone bison up on the ridge, it created a neat silhouette against the evening skyline.
At 8pm, we drove up to the Medora Musical site once again. It’s very well organized and utilizes its location perfectly, providing escalators to take you down to the ‘bowl’ where the seating and stage area is, the escalators then switch directions to be able to take you back up.
Thankfully, there were no storms and no rain this evening and we were able to enjoy the entire performance. As well as these alternate tickets, we were given two free tickets to use at any other time this season or next. Dave sold these to another family at the campground for less than half price, a win-win all around!
The Coal Diggers were the musical group playing throughout the musical, who had also entertained us at the fondu dinner. Two of their members were from England so we chatted with them after the show. There were 11 ‘Burning Hill Singers’, plus 3 other stars: Buffalo Dale, Buffalo Alice (Becca thought she was awesome and gave her a huge hug afterwards) and Theodore Roosevelt who made up the cast.
I enjoyed the tap dancing number, Becca thought the battle was the best part, Caitlin liked the wedding. We understood why the two elk (they were there again!) were moved on from their location in the background prior to the beginning of the show, during the second half, fireworks were set off out in the field, as part of the battle scene, they would have been terrified!
Part of the second half also included a ‘featured attraction’, this month was Dave Crowe, a comedian, with a BBC review: ‘Crowe delivers a brilliant combination of saucy intellectualism and physical buffoonery. The result is a totally original style of brain-bending jocularity.’ He was laugh-out-loud funny, certainly more geared to the 10+ crowd, Jake was in absolute hysterics, he really thought he was awesome, Becca, on the other hand, kept asking, ‘why are you laughing?’!
After the show, the actors were available to chat with, of course, we met many of them. Jake made a beeline for the comedian to tell him how great he thought he was. Come to find out, his Mum was from Scunthorpe – got to love that British humor! He was chatting with Jake about the World Cup, coming up with some great comedic input, Jake was giggling away when we left.
So, an 11pm bedtime but absolutely worth it. There were also fewer kids in the audience tonight so it was easier to see ours when they went on stage. One of the reasons we had originally chosen Wednesday was because kids attend the Musical free on Wednesdays and Sundays. Thankfully that carried over to Thursday for us because of the cancellation. We would definitely recommend a visit if you’re ever in Medora, the show changes each year so people repeat visit annually.
The children went off to play on the tennis courts quite early in the morning to avoid the heat and later, we enjoyed a quiet afternoon until Dave finished work. As we had been able to exchange our tickets for a repeat performance of the Medora Musical this evening, we persuaded the younger two to rest, instructing them that they could not come out until 3:25pm at the earliest – yep, dead on 3:25, they appeared – clearly Nate has learned his number recognition very well this year!
We drove out to the National Park again to complete a couple more short hiking trails and have the kids sworn in as Junior Rangers. As we drove around a corner, there were two wild horses prancing in the middle of the road, totally unperturbed by our arrival, they just carried on as if we weren’t there! All of us were staring out of the window, Dave was able to drive slowly around them but they didn’t move out of the roadway at all, just ignored us completely.
The first hike was the steep Ridgeline Nature trail. This one was not dissimilar to Coal Vein Trail that we did a couple of days earlier; it highlighted a few of the same informational tidbits, focusing on ecology.
The second was the short Wind Canyon Nature Trail. This led us on a walk up a ridge, leading to a fantastic view of the Little Missouri River and the wind-sculpted canyon; it was wonderful, I think we could have foregone either of the others just in favor of this – so if you’re visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park and your time is brief, take this little wander up the hill, most definitely worth the view.
On the drive out, we spotted a lone bison up on the ridge, it created a neat silhouette against the evening skyline.
At 8pm, we drove up to the Medora Musical site once again. It’s very well organized and utilizes its location perfectly, providing escalators to take you down to the ‘bowl’ where the seating and stage area is, the escalators then switch directions to be able to take you back up.
Thankfully, there were no storms and no rain this evening and we were able to enjoy the entire performance. As well as these alternate tickets, we were given two free tickets to use at any other time this season or next. Dave sold these to another family at the campground for less than half price, a win-win all around!
The Coal Diggers were the musical group playing throughout the musical, who had also entertained us at the fondu dinner. Two of their members were from England so we chatted with them after the show. There were 11 ‘Burning Hill Singers’, plus 3 other stars: Buffalo Dale, Buffalo Alice (Becca thought she was awesome and gave her a huge hug afterwards) and Theodore Roosevelt who made up the cast.
I enjoyed the tap dancing number, Becca thought the battle was the best part, Caitlin liked the wedding. We understood why the two elk (they were there again!) were moved on from their location in the background prior to the beginning of the show, during the second half, fireworks were set off out in the field, as part of the battle scene, they would have been terrified!
Part of the second half also included a ‘featured attraction’, this month was Dave Crowe, a comedian, with a BBC review: ‘Crowe delivers a brilliant combination of saucy intellectualism and physical buffoonery. The result is a totally original style of brain-bending jocularity.’ He was laugh-out-loud funny, certainly more geared to the 10+ crowd, Jake was in absolute hysterics, he really thought he was awesome, Becca, on the other hand, kept asking, ‘why are you laughing?’!
After the show, the actors were available to chat with, of course, we met many of them. Jake made a beeline for the comedian to tell him how great he thought he was. Come to find out, his Mum was from Scunthorpe – got to love that British humor! He was chatting with Jake about the World Cup, coming up with some great comedic input, Jake was giggling away when we left.
So, an 11pm bedtime but absolutely worth it. There were also fewer kids in the audience tonight so it was easier to see ours when they went on stage. One of the reasons we had originally chosen Wednesday was because kids attend the Musical free on Wednesdays and Sundays. Thankfully that carried over to Thursday for us because of the cancellation. We would definitely recommend a visit if you’re ever in Medora, the show changes each year so people repeat visit annually.
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