forestofglory

After our day in Yellowstone, we had long driving day -- all the way across Wyoming and into South Dakota. Wyoming was beautiful, maybe some day I'll get to spend time there not just driving through.

Our 1st stop that moring was at a small town post office where I bought a sheet of postcard stamps. (This seemed like a good idea at the time, but I latter realized that most of the people I want to send postcards to don't live in the US. oops.)

After that I drove through Bighorn National Forest which is amazingly beautiful. I kept stopping at lookouts to admire the view. There where lots of peaks, and also helpful signs explaining the geography. We stopped at Shell Falls which had nice nature center.

We had lunch in not very nice American/Korean place. We both had the buffet which was not nice. It was kinda greasy and bland. It did feature deep fried carrots though.

As we got closer and closer to the town of Wall, SD the road was lined with signs telling us to stop at Wall Drug. There where signs every 20 ft or so. Some of them where baffling while others where amusing. So we decided to stop. Saddly the signs where way better then the store, which was a tourist trap.

However shortly after we left wall we drove into Badlands National Park. I wasn't sure what to expect but certainly not the sculpted pink rock formations that greeted us. It look extra rosy in the dusk.

After checking into our hotel we decided to try and find some where to eat in Interior, SD where we where staying. This smart move. We ended up eating frozen pizza and a rather shady bar.

The next morning we got up early for a hike in the badlands. I chose a 4 mile flat loop. Even thought we started fairly early it was hot walk. The terrain was mostly short grass prairie with lots of rock formations. Some of them had grass growing on the top. We saw several frogs and lots of insect life.

After or hike we stopped in a the visitors center and saw a movie about the park. I learned that it was a site for reintroduction black footed ferrets. Then we looking at the exhibit about the early mammal fossils found in the park, and I bought some postcards.

Next we had lunch at the park lodge. I had a Sioux Taco, which consisted of fry bread with taco toppings -- beans, buffalo meat, tomatoes, lettuce and cheese. It was the 1st time I'd ever had fry bread and it was delicious. R had a bison burger which he said was very good.

After lunch we drove the scenic loop out of the park which had some lovely overlooks, a short boardwalk into the prairie with helpful signs, and a prairie dog colony.

We had a fairly short driving day that day (about 4 hours) but we got a late start due to spending so much time at Badlands. We then stopped for a break at what turned out to be a very slow dinner, and crossed into to central time. All of which meant we got to our hotel quite late. Thus I was very tried and grumpy when we set out to look for dinner. It didn't help that the 1st place we tried was closed. We eventually found a diner-ish place that was ok. They had a salad bar which meant we got to eat right away.

I didn't take any notes on the last day so my report isn't going to be as detailed. We stopped at Blue Earth Minnesota where they have a 60 foot tall statue of the jolly green giant. We went rather far out of our way to try a cafe that turn out to only be so-so. And we finally got to Iowa! Just over the border we stopped at a barn shaped rest stop.

I've now been here for almost three weeks. Hopefully I'll write more about what I've been doing in those weeks soon.