Badlands National Park and Our 1-Month Anniversary

I had originally planned just one post for our Boondocking/Badlands visit – but got a little carried away with the pictures and thought stuffing 30 of them into one post might be a bit much. Lol. 

We visited Badlands National Park on Thursday, 8/25.  We did the scenic drive through the park and a couple of short hikes. I must have said “WOW” about 800 times! It amazes me how each place we visit is totally different and yet each one is beautiful in its own way.  We were also lucky enough to visit on the day they celebrated the 100^th Birthday of the National Parks and got cake, ice cream and fresh squeezed lemonade too!

Happy Birthday National Park Service!

I am happy to report we did NOT see any bison on our hikes today. Although we did run into two very large Big Horn rams! What is it with the animals on the trail?? We were close to our turnaround point, so we called it good and headed back without challenging them for the right of way. (Don’t think we’d have won that argument!) We usually prefer a loop trail, but that is one good thing about the Badlands, the landscape is so surreal and convoluted that you can turn around and hike the same trail back and it seems completely different.

I'm not arguing with that hard head! Lol.

Checking us out checking them out. 

Where do we go from here??

Have a seat and enjoy the view.

We also saw Pronghorn Antelope and lots of prairie dogs. We had to laugh at this sign posted at the park entrance. So much more effective than, “Please do not feed the prairie dogs”. Lol. 

Move over...coming through!

That'll make you think twice about playing with the prairie dogs!

August 25^th also marked one month on the road! We’ve matched our longest RV trip (a month last summer) so from here out we’re in uncharted territory. Lol. 

So far we’ve traveled 2396 miles in the RV (not counting day trips in the CRV), gone through 264 gallons of diesel, stayed at 14 different places, visited 4 National Parks, and several state parks.  The pace of travel has been faster than we’d like – there are so many things we just don’t have time to see/do! While there is some flexibility in our schedule, we made reservations at key places for this part of the trip. The next segment of our trip will be a dash across the Midwest with a scheduled arrival date at Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio on Saturday, September 3^rd. 

Needless to say, we are enjoying the trip immensely! Rog has taken to baking cookies (oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodles – yum!) on his portable wood pellet fired Traeger grill. They turned out great. I knew the Traeger did awesome ribs, but cookies?? Who knew?!  Lol. The other thing that is surprising is how little down time we seem to have. I packed a ton of books and things to do so I wouldn’t be bored – ha! Our days typically start around 6:30am and we are on the go until we turn in around 10:30-11:00pm. We try to get in our steps (thanks to Fitbit for the constant nagging!), although it isn’t always possible on travel days.  

We also spend a good deal of time scouting our route, checking road conditions, choosing our next stop (when it’s not scheduled) and keeping an eye on the weather apps.  Of course organizing all those pictures we take keeps me busy too. Lol.  Anyhow, hope you are enjoying the blog – it’s been fun sharing our adventures with you. 

Happy One Month on the Road!