There is NOTHING like your first bison sighting.

But tragedy struck Theodore Roosevelt’s world and he returned to the badlands under much different circumstances. On February 12, 1884, Teddy received the good news that his wife and love of his life, Alice, had given birth to their first child. Moments later he received another telegram summoning him home. He quickly left the New York legislature in Albany and arrived home to find his mother dying and his wife very ill. On February 14, 1884 Teddy Roosevelt’s mother died of typhoid and just hours later, his wife succumbed to a rare kidney disease which had been masked by the pregnancy. He lost the two most important people in his life in the same house on the same tragic St. Valentine’s day.

Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing that first bison or having a prairie dog pop his head out of his tunnel and pose for us, or feeling like a cowboy ready to lasso one of the long-horned steer, but now we can’t wait to explore the beauty that this country has to offer.