Fwd: Badlands National Park - August 31 - September 1

Well, as you can see, our blog posts are several days behind the actual events due to little time with internet access / little time to write the posts as we race the cold weather. We're at Grand Teton NP right now, but before that, we visited Yellowstone, Glacier, and Badlands National Parks (going back in time starting with the most recent). We have so many pretty pictures of and little tidbits about our exploits that we feel compelled to tell you about them in chronological order, so please forgive the time delay.

Anyway, as I sit here in the laundry room at this Grand Teton campground, I have enough time to post some pictures of our visit to the beautiful Badlands National Park. Enjoy! More to come as time and internet access permit. Sending love to anyone reading!

- Mina

Wind Cave NP - August 28-30

We stayed at Wind Cave two nights. This place has continued the national park trend (with the sole exception being Mesa Verde) of having no showers. This, along with the pile of once worn clothes we commonly have (we've each narrowed done to just three shirts) makes for some slightly to moderately smelley campers on a lot of days.

We think we're usually not so noticable in this way. Well, it really came into play at Wind Cave as we decided to take the "Wild Cave" tour: a 4 hour caving crawl with eight other people with gathering rooms as small as 12'x12'x5' and passage ways as small as 10.5" tall. That's some close quarters. Luckily the cave is a constant 53F, so even with the moderate activity we stayed sweatless and mostly odorless. Being right behind Mina I can say she was ok...though I didn't ask though those behind me.

The cave tour was super exciting. We got to wear all the gear and crawl and climb through some really tight and amazingly large places. Its a total maze down there too. One room has 18 exits, a lot of which end up just winding back to that same room again. At one point we had to climb up a corkscrewing vertical tunnel for about 20'. I'll admit that while I didn't particlarly enjoy it I would do it again just because the idea of it seems so cool.

Above ground it was mainly prairie with a small bit of forest. We saw lots of buffalo, pronghorn antelope, and lots of suicidal prairie dogs that enjoyed running out in front of cars.

After a night at the KOA (showers!) we were off for the Badlands.

- Trent

Sierra Trading Post, Wyoming and Ft Robinson State Park, Nebraska - August 27-28

After taking advantage of laundry and wifi at Motel 6, we stopped at the nearby Sierra Trading Post outlet. For the uninitiated, Sierra Trading Post is a website that offers discounted outdoor gear. There, we found a super-discounted two-person tent, which we had been hoping to get someday for easier carrying and set-up. It was a returned item, so we had to check if there was anything wrong with it (didn't seem to be, and as of Sepember 5, it's worked out GREAT so far), and we got it for less than half the normal price!

We drove through some of Nebraska on the way towards Wind Cave NP in South Dakota. There were a ton of bugs on the farm roads in NB. The first RV park our GPS indicated didn't exist; then, the first state park we came to was creepy since there was no one there. Another state park didn't appear to have camping available even though the atlas indicated it would. So, we continued on, encountering a herd of loose cattle on the way (which we tried to report via 911 – which didn't work for some reason – scary! – but luckily we saw the owner coming to attend to them).

We finally stopped, late at night, at Fort Robinson State Park, which actually had visitors. We drove through a tent section surrounding a cemetery (weird) and surrounded by corn rows, with tent campers randomly camping wherever. Then we found the other tent section, which was by the highway but had space for us, where we got to try out our new tent. The set-up was so easy, we were able to do it in the dark in much less time than our tried-and-true 4-person tent.

The next morning, after brushing off the slugs from our shoes, we headed out towards Wind Cave.

- Mina

Rocky Mountain National Park, Part 3 - August 26

(All those pictures apparently can't be sent at once; thus the multiple enstallments...)

Rocky Mountain National Park, Part 2 - August 26

The next morning, Wednesday, the 26th, we drove Fall River Road up a mountain with beautiful views of snowy-banked mountains and lush valleys. Short trails along the way offered close-up views of streams rushing down the mountain, and we saw elk and marmots as well. After a stop at the visitor center at the top, we headed out of the park.

- Mina

Rocky Mountain National Park, Part 1 - August 24-25

After getting our oil changed and our 10,000 mile maintenance at the dealership and gathering some supplies at REI in Colorado Springs, we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park, where we checked into Moraine Campground, where a friendly ranger hooked us up with one of their nicest campsites, with beautiful views of the mountains and some wood left by the last campers. You can see Trent proudly sitting by his first "one-match" campfire there. The next morning, we moved campsites to Aspenglen Campground. At both sites, the parking spaces were far away enough from the tent site that we were inspired to streamline our belongings enough to be able to take one trip with our supplies to the campsite, so much of our time at Aspenglen was spent purging our belongings in preparation to send home and donate.

- Mina

Colorado Springs - August 22-24

We had a wonderful time in Colorado Springs getting to see my uncle Mike and our friend Mark. We got to Mike's on Friday (the 22nd), where he fed us delicious pasta with sausage and we got much-needed showers. Then Mike gave us and Mark a tour of his lab at the Airforce Academy. It was awesome, and I'm so happy to have finally gotten to see it.


(on the way to Mike's house in his neighborhood - not a bad view, eh?)

The next morning Mike made us espresso and cappuccino and we met Mark at Garden of the Gods (Falling Rock, I believe, of which is pictured below).



Then we had lunch with Mark and walked around Colorado College where he works - cool beans and also a great view from there!

That evening, Mike took us to Wilkerson's Pass where we took in the awesome scenery, walked around, and chatted. Twas much fun!











Thanks for a great weekend Uncle Mike!

- Mina

info below

I just updated the posts below to include the dates of the events described (not just the dates posted) and the name of the poster where relevant.

Also I added some little things I wanted to mention in the "Mesa Verde National Park - August 19-20" and ''Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park - August 21" posts.

- Mina