Welcome to the Badlands

After leaving MN, we headed across South Dakota, with a planned stop at The Badlands and Mt Rushmore.  I did a nice road ride along the loop road in The Badlands and met up with the family at the town of Wall.  We had buffalo burgers and hot dogs for lunch and then headed to Rapid City.

We made it to Rapid City and drove to Mt. Rushmore.  It was pretty cool, though most of the visitor exhibits were closed by the time we arrived.  We were going to stay for the nightly lighting ceremony, but decided we'd better just find a campground.  The next morning, we drove down to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Geology Museum, which has a pretty awesome exhibit of fossils.

After leaving Rapid City, we headed to Devils Tower.  We attended a park ranger presentation on Turkey Vultures, which Abigayle really liked, and then stayed up all night watching for aliens :-)  The next morning, we headed out for the long drive across Wyoming to Thermopolis.

Thermopolis has really large hot spring sediment formations and a pretty good dinosaur museum.

Welcome to South Dakota!

There is a road through there somewhere. 

Finishing up my ride through the Badlands. 

Every town has a library, no matter how small.

They don't look so big from here. 

Washington peeking around a tree.

Look Mom, I'm holding up the Dino (Geology Museum in Rapid City).

Campsite at Devils Tower.

No aliens to be seen.

Yee-haw!

Leaving the flatlands behind, time to go up!

Guess what we're having for lunch! 

Large mineral deposit at Thermopolis Hot Springs.  Yeah, it's warm and it smells!

My favorite dino, Triceratops.

What a great guard dog this little guy would've made!

I almost got all of this one in the frame, but not quite.