I really wanted to see the sun come up over the Badlands, and I wasn't disappointed. It was hard to capture it with my camera, but here are a few I really like:
true love shadow puppets
After the sunrise, we headed back to our hotel room to rouse the children who were too lazy/sleepy/travel-worn to get up so early, grabbed some breakfast, and headed back into the park. We drove the whole park road, stopping at overlooks and taking hiking trails. I made an error in judgment for the hike we took by wearing my prescription sunglasses, which are polarized, which made it nearly impossible to focus through my camera lens, so Mike took over for a while and got some wonderful bird shots. We also ran into this deer just off the trail.
"don't you forget about me"
spotted towhee
blue grosbeak
At the top of Mike's wish list was spotting a bighorn sheep in the wild, and trust me when I say that we were awfully excited to see one. And then ... we found more! We found moms with babies! We found lone bighorns on the sides of rocky hills! We found bighorns eating grass! It was a bighorn bonanza.
We had so much fun just exploring. We went down a fossil trail looking for fossils, and just generally tried to take everything in. Not an easy feat considering how overwhelming the scenery is!
runway model
western bluebird
representing the home crowd
I think my favorite section of the park was the Yellow Mounds. The Badlands are all interesting to look at, but the colors in this part were just extraordinary. The boys were nice enough to pose for me too.
The last official stop in the park was the prairie dog town. I loved watching them pop up out of their holes and run around. Their noises are pretty funny too. Mike tried to get close to take pictures of them, and I appreciated that view as well. :)
We saw a bison covered in birds (brown cowbirds, I think).
And one antelope for the road...
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