Bail-Dog's Blog: The Badlands of North Dakota

Thoedore Roosevelt National Memorial Park | South Unit – Medora, ND

By far the highlight of the trip thus far, the Badlands of North Dakota are a rustic and powerful place. After spending the day acting like a true tourist, I finally have some photos worthy of sharing.

Roosevelt's passion for the outdoors and his devotion to the preservation of nature's raw beauty are what led to the creation of this amazing park – as well as our national park system as a whole. For that, I am truly grateful. Because of my experience here, Teddy Roosevelt has earned a spot among my favorite U.S. presidents.

In addition to his devotion to the conservation of the environment, Roosevelt also had a deep love for writing, which is evident in the following quotes:

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation."

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."

"Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us."

- Theodore Roosevelt