Day 358 (Everglades)

We made it to the Everglades today. The original plan was to just get a room at a hotel and call it a night, but we got here around 5, so we decided to check it out. The national park system is amazing; the diversity is breathtaking! There's the beautiful arid barrenness of the Badlands in South Dakota, and then there's the wonderfully wet swamps in the Everglades. We didn't spend all that much time there, because we did still need to find a place to stay for the night, but here are some pictures that show just how wet the park actually is:

To top it off, we saw two alligators! This first one was just some bubbles slowly rising to the surface, but as we watch, it rose up and started floating on top! I only got this one good picture 'cuz it swam away so fast. I think all the people were making too much noise for it.

We saw this second one as we were about to leave. I have tons of pictures this time 'cuz it just swam slowly along the pathway as we followed. Luckily, it didn't try to come up on the pathway, although it was keeping a very sharp eye on us!

PICTURE OF THE DAY:

Day 318 (Badlands II)

We drove from the Badlands to Minneapolis today, over 500 miles. Hammie needs maintenance, but I don't know if I'm gonna have time to take care of that while the General Assembly is going on. He might need to wait 'til we get to Ohio, but that's gonna be a lot of miles...

Here are some more pictures of the Badlands that I took as we were leaving the park. We had breakfast at the lodge and also went to the visitor's center.

The only other picture I took today was of the Missouri River after we crossed it.

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Day 317 (Badlands)

This was the final shot of Washington's head on Mt. Rushmore as we left.

I wanted so badly to blog from Badlands National Park, but there was no cell phone reception whatsoever out there, so this blog is almost a full day behind. Nevertheless, on with the show!

We started the day at the Crazy Horse Memorial. This dude, when complete, will be able to fit all four of the president's faces of Mt. Rushmore in his head! Unfortunately, visitors were not allowed to get very close to it, and I think they only let people get really close 1 or 2 times a year. There were a lot of exhibits showing Native American stuff and some things relating to the artist.

After that we tried to visit Jewel Cave National Monument, but after waiting for two ours for our tour to start, the elevator that takes people down into the cave broke down and they cancelled all the rest of the tours for the day. Sucks, but we left and headed towards our final destination for the day: Badlands National Park.

On the way there, we discovered a popular tourist attraction; Wall Drug Store. This place wasn't so much a store as it was an amusement park, but without the rides. I noticed I have a tendency to compare things to Disneyland...

We got to the Badlands shortly after. This place was cool! We saw a bighorn sheep on top of one of the formations, but the setting sun was right behind it, so I couldn't take a picture. The wind was blowing so hard I don't think I was able to fall asleep until 3 in the morning O_o

PICTURE OF THE DAY: I snuck up behind this pronghorn so my mom could take my picture with it XD