Hiking Challenge - Day 4 & 5

It's been raining and snowing for the past two days, so I've been relegated to "hiking" in town to avoid getting stuck in the mud. For two nights in a row I took a few walks around Medora. Medora is about 4 x 6 blocks of shops, restaurants, hotels, and a couple of houses sprinkled here and there. As it's almost May, the town has started to wake up a bit. Delivery trucks are making their way into town, some shops have lights on, and even a few places like James Gang Java are open for lunch three days a week! That's biggest news we've had around here since the ice broke on the river!


It really hasn't sunk in yet that I won't be living in Medora after next week. Although, a piece of me must know as I felt compelled to take pictures of everything.

First, there's the thing that brought us here in the first place: Theodore Roosevelt National Park.


Next is the Post Office: the gathering place - where you can find five cars at any given minute during your lunch hour, after not seeing any cars for a week from your front window.

Right down the block, past the horrifying mass of construction formerly known as the Rough Rider Hotel, is the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. Extremely boring if you're not into cowboys, the history of saddles, or Miss North Dakota. However, you are reading the picture correctly - it was the 2007 North Dakota Tourist Attraction of the Year, so come on down!


Go another block and you'll hit Chimney Park, home to the meat packing plant that put Medora on the map thanks to the Marquis de Mores.

If you walk three more blocks to the other side of town, you'll hit the Iron Horse, the only restaurant/bar open year round. They've had some violations, hence the (I'm sure snide) French comment on their sign alongside the names of every cop in Western North Dakota. I'll always look back on it with fond memories of it as the scene of Dan & Jen's Wedding Reception this February.


Last but not least the Medora Musical Amphitheater. Carved into the side of a bluff at the edge of town, this theater attracts 3,000 people almost every night to see the famous Medora Musical. I had a blast at it last year, but, alas, will not be sticking around long enough to see the college-age actors clogging it up this year.