The air was still but it wasn't silent, it was filled with the sound of cicadas humming their siren call from the tops of massive cottonwoods. The cottonwoods along with junipers filled the campground along the Little Missouri River’s valley floor. No police sirens, no cars driving along filled city streets rushing to work. Just the sound of cicadas from treetops….
Later a storm front roared in, again the only sound of its arrival the cottonwoods swaying in the breeze. The sky took on a green that I have only seen a few times before and a massive wall cloud appeared in a break in the trees and we saw cumulus mammaltis clouds filling the sky! To hear the sky change from the hum of cicadas to the winds roar of a massive storm.
After the storm passed we got into our truck and drove to an open spot, all the while Renita continued to watch the radar on her smart phone as I gazed around the sky, our camera in hand. We never did see any circulation but we watched cloud to cloud and cloud to ground bolts of lightening dance across the sky.
To think we had seen the grandest shows in only a few hours. It’s a small wonder why we love the west and I really feel that Teddy Roosevelt felt the same way we do. He may have even watched as a storm swept across this valley and surely he had heard the cicadas sing from the tree tops of his Elkhorn ranch. What a great man to have saved so many wild places.
I don’t really know what I expected, coming here to his national park, I expected to see some beauty but not to be so moved. Tomorrow we will explore more and we already has discovered another unexpected treasure, North Dakota magic. Clear skies
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