Badlands

The Badlands are in South Dakota, an hour or so east of Mt Rushmore and some of the other sites.

There seem to be two parts to this park.  The eastern region is dry, hot, rugged and fairly inhospitable.

The Western area is grassy and full of animals.  Hundreds of prairie dogs live here and they are hilarious.  They are tiny animals that burrow into the ground, however they seem to spend most of the day above ground in a social atmosphere.  They seem to have a warning system when people come to gawk...they sort of stand up, throw their front legs wide and scream.  It is really quick, never caught one in a photo, but funny to watch.

 One afternoon we were joined for happy hour by a number of bison.  While we were sitting outside with a beer, they slowly encircled us and the RV, while munching the grass.  Of course they wandered away when we got up to get a camera.  Earlier, Phil and Chris went for a little hike nearby and learned an important lesson on not startling the bison.

On the way to the drier, eastern area we spotted this sheep chilling on a ledge. 

Near the Badlands National Park are some of the old Minutemen missile silos.  Most of the silos in this area have been decommissioned and there is one launch facility and one silo open to tourists.

They built the launch facility to look like a ranch house.  Sort of.

 Burried underneath the living areas in the house is a thick walled pod where the officers were stationed for 12 hour shifts in case the need arose to launch a nuclear missile.  The pods were constructed to withstand a near miss by a nuclear strike, and there is an escape hatch.  If there was a nuclear strike, why would you even bother trying to escape??

A little Minutemen humour.

The next stop was at a missile silo.  There is a missile down in there.

 The lid on the silo is pretty thick. 

After our visits to all these sites we started our long drive east across the rest of South Dakota.  Trust us, that state goes on for a long time.

South Dakota

Yellowstone NP left a big impression and we were tempted to go up to Glacier NP.  Twice we actually made some arrangements to go there, but then we heard that most of the roads in the park were closed and so we headed east. 

Our next touristy stops were in western South Dakota.  We visited Mount Rushmore and those presidents are still looking good up there.

One of the drillers who worked on the sculpting back in the 1930's was signing books and answering questions in the shop.  He was 17 when he got the job working there and is the last one left.

We camped down the road from the monument in a really nice campground.  We treated ourselves to a new tent recently and put it up.  It was too cold at night to sleep in it, but it looks good.

We got ahead of ourselves and missed a little stop in Wyoming.  We visited the Battlefield at Little Big Horn.  A very enthusiastic ranger gave a talk about the history of the battle and explained Custer's last stand.  There are white markers to identify where soldiers died on the battlefield.  Every year they have a re-enactment of the battle, and perhaps these horses take part.

Bears were not to be seen in Yellowstone, or anywhere else that we went, so to see bears we went to a place called Bear Country USA, near Mt Rushmore. Pretty touristy, but there were bears.

There were some elk also, with more antlers than we'd spotted up in the higher country.

 They had bighorn sheep too, which we hadn't seen yet either.

All the black bears ran together in a big pen which we drove through.  Black bears are not all black, they can be brown or even sort of blonde too.

Maybe it is like being at a spa for them... a bit of time on the logs, then maybe a swim.  Wonder what is for lunch?

The Grizzlies are in their own enclosure, not where we drive.  Look at that face!!! 

 Cuddly.

The cubs all had their own enclosure (nursery) where they play non-stop.  We're not sure if these cubs get together with their moms at the end of the day or what, but maybe we don't want to dwell on the happiness of these animals.

 It was good to see all the bears and I was pleased that Phil and Chris didn't leave me there.

Yellowstone part II

Today in Billings, Montana, we are back in shorts and the warmth and sunshine are welcome.  Great to wash the thermals and put them away, but for how long this time?

Getting back to Yellowstone and the wildlife spotting, here is a group of elk checking out a campsite not far from ours.

We spotted some coyotes near the river looking for something,

and then saw this fox near the road after a small critter no doubt.

It is early calving season for the bison and we saw only a handful of calves.  Check out this photo carefully, it is a little scary (for the bison) to see the fox or coyote just in the upper left corner, not very far from that calf.  Didn't notice the fox until we were going through the photos.

We were very lucky to see some wolves too.  This fellow was busy digging something up near the road.

 These guys were on some sort of mission in the snow.  They marched right past us in the RV.

We even managed to spot a moose and her calf up in the forest one day.  Surprise, what good luck!

What we did not see, was a bear.  Are they all still hibernating?  We heeded the warnings but spent a lot of time looking in the areas that are supposed to have a lot of bears.

 You might ask, what is bear spray?  We wondered if it would have a similar effect, on a bear, as wasp spray.  The bear spray is over $30.00 a can and the wasp spray is about $3.00, but who is willing to do this experiment?  Really.

...and so, we were armed with bear spray.

We could have easily spent more than four days in this park.  The scenery was stunning, no matter what weather conditions we encountered.

 The thermal activity in so many areas of the park is renowned.  There are bubbling hot springs all over.

 How hot are they?  Chris just had to touch the springwater.

 One day we all went to see Old Faithful, which following an earthquake, isn't quite so faithful anymore but this day it was right on time.

Finally, it was time to leave.  One last look at the snow, and another interesting road sharing experience, and then we headed to the Roosevelt Gate.

Yellowstone National Park

Hello from Montana, Big Sky Country.
We departed the Colorado ski fields and headed north to Wyoming, stopped in Cheyenne for a look around and then meandered through the state to finally arrive at Yellowstone National Park.  We spent a night in Cody and the Beartooth Highway opened up so we were able to get up to the north east entrance outside of Cooke City.  There was a lot of snow on the way...serious amounts of snow.  We were wondering how much we'd be able to do in the park with that much snow around, but as you'll see, as we dropped back down in elevation there was less snow.

Mammoth campground, in the northeast area of the park, was the only campground open when we arrived and we stayed there.  It was a fairly central place for us and allowed us to make our daily excursions either south or east. 

The scenery here was just fantastic, you need to see it.  We were lucky to experience about 3 seasons in the 4 days we spent in the park.  Phil and Chris were wearing shorts in Cody, Wyoming, and were again in t-shirts when we left the park.  During our stay however, we had a day and night of snow, and cold temperatures down to 17 F (-8 C).  It may have even been colder at night, but we don't want to know about that.  The little furnace in the RV worked hard.

Wildlife spotting is fun here.  There are over 3000 bison in the park and we saw hundreds most days.

 As I mentioned, we experienced a few seasons.

There are hundreds or maybe thousands of elk in the park too, but they are in smaller groups and generally in the trees a bit more than the bison.  Here is a one with the antlers growing again.

There was a group of elk that spent a lot of time around the campground, they see so many people and cars that it doesn't bother them too much.

There are antelope...

Actually, this is the wrong antelope photo.  Notice the fence line?  There aren't fences in yellowstone.

In summer, over 6600 cars visit Yellowstone a day.  Yes, a day.  We can't imagine the traffic conjestion...look at the problems we had now, when only some of the roads and entrances were open!

We have more photos and stories, but need to take a little internet break.  Stay tuned for part II.