Badlands National Park

We're here! We made it to The Badlands National Park - and it's great! I've taken over a hundred pictures already, and it's only been a day! It's beautiful and the landscape seems to change every time the sun's rays illuminate a new peak or valley.




We climbed up on some of the formations, and could see from a higher vantage point the scope of these badlands. It's raining now, so I'm interested to see how the rain changes it in the morning. I expect more mud, obviously, but all the peaks are just constantly eroding away. I heard that in 500,000 years they'd be gone completely. Good thing we came this year.



Sirhc had a very adventurous day. Once he saw the Badlands, he couldn't contain himself anymore and started leaping everywhere! I snapped a picture of him as he hurled himself across the boardwalk looking over the Badlands. Silly Sirhc.




We met up with Mary and Karen this afternoon at the KOA Badlands/White River campground (they fed Dad brunswick stew for dinner - he's still beaming - plus homemade cookies!). We're a couple of miles outside of the park. We were enchanted by these little one-room log cabins that we saw on the other side of the campground from Mary and Karen's site, so we checked them out, priced them out, checked the weather forecast (severe thunderstorms through tonight and into tomorrow), then decided it would be sooooo cool to rent one of these little cabins for the night. So we did. Then, once we were inside of our cabin, we decided to rent it for tomorrow night too! The tent will be great as soon as the thunderstorms are out of the forecast. Probably by Saturday night we'll finally be tenting. But for now, this cabin is great! We're dreaming of building one at the Orchard now - Dad took pictures of all the building's details so he'd know how to do it.


As I write this, I am laying on one of the log-frame beds in the log cabin. The cabin has a log-frame double bed and a log frame bunk bed (I gave Dad the bunk bed), a desk and a little bench and two windows. Plus, a super cute front porch with a log-swing. We had some orange and apple juice on the porch swing before coming in for the night. The rain is picking up, but we're between storms now. Glad to not be tenting tonight.


Surrounding the campground is the White River. It is not too big or deep, but like all rivers out here is prone to flooding when there is a lot of rain. Mary, Dad and I took a walk around the river this afternoon while it was still sunny and dry.


Dad and I went up to Window and Door Trails in the Park to walk around some of the formations and see the vast view. That is where I took most of my pictures. I also got to call Mike from that pull-off cause I had pretty good cell service. No cell signal at the campground. But I have WiFi. And yes, I feel silly sitting on a log bed in a log cabin playing on my laptop computer on the internet. I like my technologies! Here are the storm clouds rolling in. Mike - this is what it looked like as I was talking to you.


Many nice people out here. One family showed us these bobcat tracks in the mud.


Reminder to wear appropriate shoes! A women parked next to us fell in the parking lot (which is under construction and has some holes in it...) and fell. She scraped up her leg pretty well. Dad poured peroxide on it for her, and we outfitted her in a lovely huge bandaid. She was wearing flip flops.

Another woman offered to take our picture. Dad then took hers. Is everyone nice at National Parks?


Weird moment of the day: we were pulling out of the parking lot onto a road under construction, and the lady holding the stop/slow sign asks us for a favor - could we please turn around and go back into the parking lot, find a maroon Jeep Grand Cherokee and put the windows up? She hands us the keys, and off we go. Funny. It started raining about 5 minutes later. I wonder how long she had been standing there holding the sign, unable to go to her car herself, watching the storm clouds roll in?


The wind and rain seems to be picking up again now. Dad is off taking a shower before bedtime. We're happy to not be driving tonight and are thrilled to be going to bed at a reasonable time tonight. Feeling pretty adjusted to the time change now. Pancake breakfast given by the campground in the morning! Food, glorious food!