Hello followers of our great journey! I'm deeply sorry I haven't been able to give you the daily play by play. For some reason a lot of motels don't believe inadequate broadband internet speeds so photos were not loading and such. Sad, I know! Anywho, we are now sound and safe in Seattle! But let me take you back through the rest of our journey!!
Day 3 Continued- The Badlands
First let me just say this was my favorite scenery of the whole trip! I have been looking forward to seeing the Badlands since I was very young and read Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech for the first time!
As you come right up to the northeast corner of the park, where you can enter for a 35 mile driving tour, the scenery is already breathtaking! We took a break from playing 20 questions- I just need to note here we never played with just 20 questions! As a Big Bang Theory joke the first few rounds our first guess was always Dr.Spock. Well about 2 hours into the game Jacob had us guessing for well into 25 minutes when I finally guessed Dr.Spock- it was him (!!!) and I smacked some stuff in the back seat and Jen said we needed a 5minute break to "come down" from all that excitement. Needless to say it was a heated game! Well we finally stopped playing when we entered the park because we just kept saying 'it looks soooo cool!!'
We got out to take some pictures by the side of the road! It was so cool looking!
We all got out at the second view point and there was a little bridge that led behind the closet formation to the road. There was the clearly marked sign next to this walkway. Alarming! But it was chilly and I may not know much about rattle snakes but I was hoping they wouldn't be out on a cold windy day!
We thought it would just be a bridge viewing point... So we hopped off the bridge at the first bend hoping not to see any scary snakes, and went up to touch the rock hoping some park patrol would not come tell us to stop it!
We all touched it, if you were wondering it's a bit sandy/caked dirt feeling, with pumice like texture beneath. It made me surprised that it doesn't just wash away when it rains, but it's a neat combination! Jen even went for a quick climb haha
We both climbed the farthest outcropping! There were some in the distance behind us too.
I then saw some large cat prints. My immediate reaction was to point and shout "cougar!!" Then the whole afternoon proceeded to speculate on where the cougars lived and played, of course I love cats big and small!
The bridge led right into this massive field of rocks and outcroppings. Above is Jen enjoying the view! Below is Jacob totally wandering off into the open! The bridge actually led right out into this area and there were 9 sign posts taking you out deep into the valleys! It was amazing!!
Even in the middle of the afternoon the clouds darkened the sky if they were right over the sun and with so many tall ridges there was a lot of shade
I made Jen and Jacob take some nice brother-sister pictures to remember this their first successful road trip! Memories for a lifetime! Though Jacob told me there's no way he could forget this road trip (and all his driving)- duh cause it was so fun!
Jen and I were right on the edge of a cliff here! I got a little scared looking over even though it wasn't so deep. It's just that the walls are so ridged it would be terrible to slip and fall!
We really were just wandering around through this valley. We kept talking about how easy it would be to get turned around and wondering if tourists every got lost out there. There were markers, but no trail and nothing to stop you from just going out on your own, besides good common sense!
Here was the first wildlife we saw all day! We kept hoping we would see buffalo. And Jen kept raving on about seeing a moose or bear along our drive, even though I thought they might not be the safest animals to see along the road even while in a vehicle. Jacob especially really wanted to see buffalo and we thought we would definitely see some wandering in the park. But at least we saw a cute bunny!
Below are some pictures from around the drive once we got into the car. These aren't even all that I snapped. The speed limit was only 25mph so I was hanging out the window like a dog trying to get pictures from all angles. The park road was nice and windy taking us down into valleys and climbing right up next to other outcroppings. It was truly remarkable for being a bunch of rocks!
We were nearing the end portion on the park road when we finally saw some bigger wildlife! This long horned ram was so neat. He was just eating by the side of the road not even paying any attention to us at all!
Then just after that we some some of his lady friends also eating calmly by the roadside.
Now Jen wanted to get some pictures of these animals a little closer. She was also trying to use her phone camera which is junk and so she just hopped out of the truck and started crouch running around it to snap a better picture!
She scared them away... duh. Then she wanted to catch the sunset... and Jacob drove away up the next hill.
So Jen had to run to catch up! She said she didn't mind since we'd been sitting for days already!
Towards this last section of the Badlands drive we sway this more crumble rock that had all these vibrant yellow sections that we really neat!
And here's sunset in the Badlands! ... And no we didn't see any buffalo in the 35 mile detour!!
Wall, SD: Home of Wall Drug
I must preface this section of pictures with a note that since we had entered South Dakota that morning on I-90 we had seen literally hundreds of billboards for "Wall Drug" with crazy slogans and ads for 5cent coffee. Needless we were confused why they were advertising for something for 200 miles, but it is a big tourist pull being just past the Badlands and before Mt Rushmore. After seeing so many signs and wanting some much needed food we ended up in Wall, SD. (Look up their story online to see the significance of the billboards)
We ate in the Cactus lounge because I searched online and they have buffalo burgers on their menu. We figured if we couldn't see the buffalo we could at least eat some!
Here's a sign we saw for Jen, but the waitress didn't know where we could buy one.
After dinner, which was delicious (!), we stopped in Wall Drug to get some souvenirs, even though our waitress said it was closed (being a Sunday night in the off season). We were in luck because they were just getting ready to close but we grabbed some stuff (shot glasses and postcards etc) and got some homemade ice cream, also very yummy!
Here we finally saw a great big buffalo *head* !
And here's my mountain lion! She's even stalking on her log!
After this we got back in the car and ended up at the strangest gas station I've ever been to. It was not just a gas station, oh no, it was also a mini cabella's style taxidermy viewing area. So weird. Must be the coolest place in town!
Quite a few of their animals were in vicious predator/prey scenarios. Straight off the animal planet!
And none of us had a clue what this super creepy animal was!
It was dark out but we decided since we were so close we were going to see Mount Rushmore! We drove a little while off I-90 and saw the deserted tourist town right before the monument. Then we drove into the parking area (twice because most of the parking garage floors were blocked off and we had passed the open one). For the record... The park did have a big sign stating "We're Open" but no attendant at the gate and so parking was free. We parked and went exploring... (over the "Walkway Closed" sign)
We were just kaleidoscoping in the national monument of Mt Rushmore! We walked up to the top and everything was dark, except for the flag walkway.
This picture on the vending machine by the bathrooms was the closest we would see of Mt Rushmore (besides the postcards we got at Wall Drug that is). Sad, but rule breaking made it worth it! Although the quiet besides the flapping flags making it sound like someone was working was a little (ok a lot) creepy!
After a rather long and dark hilly drive out of the park area, which Jacob was so over, we finally crossed into Wyoming! (You can't really read the sign because it was tiny since we were only on Rt. 16 not a major highway)
As we got into the very first town we came across in Wyoming, called Newcastle, we decided to call it quits for the night. But all of the lodgings had either heinous vehicle accommodations, or were somebody's house. We had to drive around a bit to find a decent place at which time Jacob drove over a plastic cone that got wedged under the truck only to be drug under us for a mile and a half at which time it popped out in front of the AutoInn that we ended up staying at. Quite a day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment