We arrived in Badlands National Park in the mid-afternoon and were greeted with LOTS of humidity and heat. Ick. We even considered cutting our stay short because it was so hot! We decided to set up our camp and spent a lot of time at the air-conditioned visitor’s center learning about the Badlands. When it cooled down, we went to hike Notch Trail at sunset.
This hike was one of the highlights of our trip so far, mostly because of the epic lightning storm + sunset that we saw. It was beautiful!! And there were so many lightning strikes off in the distance – nature’s very special light show.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19645953256/in/dateposted/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19723889205/in/dateposted/
Because our second day in the Badlands was supposed to be even hotter, we decided to get up at the crack of dawn to go for a hike. We caught sunrise at the Door and Window by the entrance to the park, and then embarked on the Castle Trail. The trails ended up being mostly along the meadows looking into the rock formations, but we were able to venture into some of the formations. Jo found a “mini-tree” trying to grow, but really it’s just some shrubbery.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19716467912/in/dateposted/
More photos from the Badlands are posted on David’s flickr:
https://flic.kr/p/w4j21V
We left the next morning, and encountered lots of wildlife on our way out of the park! We’ll cover them in the next post 🙂 It was very exciting – lots of first sightings for both of us! Porcupine says HIII!!!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19725102015/in/dateposted/
We also had some fun photo-taking time on the way out Badlands…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19729188681/in/dateposted/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19536755440/in/dateposted/
Trip Counter:
– Cumulative Caffeine Count: 15
– Mosquito bite count, Joanna: 18
– Mosquito bite count, David: 3
– Temperature: 97
– Puppy Count: 10