Friday, October 9, 2009

South Dakota

I’m a bit behind in blogging.  September 16 – 19 I was in Badlands National Park.  Since I love rock formations, I instantly liked this place.  I wasn’t expecting the different colors.  And the stripes – wow. 

bd one bd stripes bd two bd colors

bd three

I know that typically colors are more vibrant at dusk and sunset, so one morning I was up and out very early to see what things looked like.  Well, luck was with me that day – I saw 2 bobcats.  A ranger I showed the pictures to (to verify they were bobcats) said she had been there 2 years and had not seen any.  Once again the pictures aren’t great, zoomed out to the max and at dusk the light wasn’t the best.

  bd bobcat

bd bobcats sil

The badlands has several “towns” of prairie dogs. I had read that they “kiss” and I finally got a picture of it -

bd prairie dog kissing

In addition to driving, hiking and visiting Wall Drugs (twice) I went rock hounding.  This area is known for it’s agates, jaspers and petrified wood.  You can’t collect it in Badland’s National Park, but you can in Buffalo Gap National Grassland which is just next to Badlands.  I collected too much and found a great piece of petrified wood. 

After the Badlands, I went to Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area for a few days.  It is definitely a weekend park.  It was full Saturday night.  Sunday there were about 8 of us left (out of about 30).  Monday it rained all day and the other 2 RVs that were supposed to stay that night left, so I had the campground to myself.  This was just a place to unwind, walk around the lake…

Next I will be visiting my sister and her family in Bloomer, Wisconsin and then Amish country in Indiana. 

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