The Badlands

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012

Josh and I woke up first this morning to a beautiful sunrise over the river.  We sat out on the bluff while waiting for the others to wake. This was our view.  When everyone was up, we got our tent packed and headed off to the Badlands.  We had about a two hour drive and as we drove into the Badlands, an amazing sight met us. The kids jumped out and immediately  headed into the hills to climb.  WOW!!!!!  What amazing views and such contrast from prairie to almost cliffs and canyons.  It did make me nervous having the boy so high above Annika and I but I just kept praying for them.  At one point, Chris was at the high point of a peak standing straight up with his hands about his head. 

I  could not see what was on the other side but Dave said it did go straight down- what a rush!  The first thing Chris did when he got back to the bottom was kiss the ground. :)  The boys were climbing all over everything and Annika and I were doing our best to keep our feet under us.  The rock was very crumbly and hard to climb...Annika did have the first slip and ripped up her tummy a bit.  The first blood of the trip!  :(  We scrambled around for about 45 min. but then headed back to the car as it was well over 100 degrees. As we were returning to our car, we did see a rescue where a man had fallen and was injured.  We prayed for him and we were reminded how dangerous places can be.  We did SO appreciate your prayers for us.

Our next stop was at the Cliff Shelf Nature Hike.  One of Dave's goals this summer is to see a real live rattlesnake in the wild.  My prayer is that we don't see it too close.  When we saw this sign, the guys thought things looked pretty promising!  As we walked, our eyes were peeled.  At one point, another man pointed out a rattlesnake under the built-up trail.  Dave was able to get a pic of the tail as it slithered away.  We did not see (or hear) any others that day- whew!  We stopped in at the Nature Center to refill our water and watch some paleontologists work on some fossils.  They actually had a dig going on right next to the center where they had found the remains of a Saber-tooth tiger.

As we were driving out of the park, Dave wanted to explore in a remote area.  So he and the boys slide down a fairly steep slope and headed off for a bit to see what they could find.  They found lots of amazing rocks (which they left), a huge bone and Jonathan found a "fossilized" old-fashioned flying Frisbee (or cow patty).  They did not see any animals but I am sure plenty say them!  The kids did GREAT with the heat.  Now is was time to head to Wall Drug.   As we entered, the temperature listed was 107 degrees. A bit toasty- good thing we were where we could get FREE ICE WATER!  We had fun exploring all the stores.  It sure was different than when Ted and  Dorothy Hustead bought it in 1931.  They were in a town with 326 POOR people and barely had any customers for 5 years.  They were about to give up and move when Dorothy had the idea of offering free ice water to the travelers on Route 16 A and they have not been without business since then.  It reminded us a bit of the story of Radiator Springs in Cars.  We ate some food and had our first buffalo burgers.  It was a very refreshing stop.

On our way to Keystone, we stopped at the South Dakota Air and Space Museum.  The kids loved looking at all the airplanes and we even saw Grampa's B-52 there.  We were not done looking when it was time to close but we got a lot of great airplane pictures.

We finished our trip to Keystone, SD and the place was hopping in preparations for the Fourth of July.  We stayed at the Brookside Motel.  It was clean, nice and we were thankful for showers and air conditioning even if the pool was the size of a bathtub :)  We all fell into bed once again thankful for a wonderful day and all the incredible places we were able to explore.