On the morning of July 16th, we stocked up on some food and provisions at the Walmart in Williston, ND. While shopping, I saw a woman with a greyhound wearing a Service Dog coat and, since we are greyhound people, had to talk to her. I had seen greyhounds be used as therapy dogs but never a service dog. Turns out she is a trainer and we got talking about how the use of dogs for service is being abused in the absence of any regulations. I couldn't agree more as I have seen personally how people are finding doctors to say that their dog is for service, simply so that they can bring them with them where they might otherwise be forbidden.
We continued west on US Hwy 2 into Montana across hilly ranch land. We took a gravel shortcut road (aptly named Cut Across Road) and came upon an odd sight. We could see in the distance a bunch of small brown things on the road and as we got closer, we saw that it was 5 baby raccoons - all dead. There didn't seem to be any trauma like they had been hit by a car, plus it would have been really hard to hit all five of them so we concluded they must have been poisoned or something. Whatever happened, it was sad to see.
We crossed the border into Saskatchewan, Canada at Morgan, MT with no problems and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. Our destination was Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan and we knew it was a Dark Sky park so it made perfect sense that it would be in the middle of nowhere. Found our way there but the only campground they have was full. Fortunately, they had overflow campsites so we settled into one of them. We drove around the park and saw buffalo, prairie dogs, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope.
There was a solar storm which meant that we might see Northern Lights so I stayed up late to see them. Jeff was hoping to do some sky viewing with his telescope but had trouble with it. It was super windy and cold at night so we didn't stay out too long.
