July 9: The Badlands

We left Minneapolis yesterday early in the morning. Here's a picture driving through western Minnesota:

We stopped for lunch in Mitchell, South Dakota.

This was taken by a gas station that was "closed for season." Whatever that means.

Once we got to Badlands National Park, we saw this:

Another pic:

After we set up camp, Josh made dinner, and the Badlands welcomed us with a rainbow.

Here's a shot maybe a mile away from the campground.

There was tons of intra-cloud lightning many miles away, and it continued through the night. It was amazing.

When it got dark, we taped glow sticks to the Frisbee and threw it around in the field by the tent. It was really neat.

This morning, after packing up camp, we saw some wild buffalo.

We went to another scenic overlook.

We drove to a trailhead and went on a hike. Here's a bunch of pictures from the trail:

After the hike, we drove to Mount Rushmore.

After that, we drove to Gillette, Wyoming, and we're staying the night at a hotel here. It should be a two day drive to Seattle.

On the road, we've been listening to a lot of a podcast called Stuff You Should Know. I've been a fan of the show for a few years now, and the podcasts are a great way to pass the time. We've also been listening to a lot of Mumford and Son's album Babel. Shout-out to Katie Brewer-Calvert for the CD, and another shout-out to Morgan Winn for the CD of The Carpenter by The Avett Brothers.

"I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands… What I saw gave me an indescribable since of mysterious elsewhere--a distant architecture, ethereal… an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it." --Frank Lloyd Wright

Trip odometer: 2555.5 miles
Currently listening to: Chopped in the background