Wild West Trip II: Badlands

 This time around we decided to spend more time in the Yellowstone area, so we cut the Badlands a little short. In hindsight I wish we could've stayed longer-the boys really loved this area and we managed to hit it when it wasn't super hot which was a blessing!

We arrived to the Badlands around lunchtime, snagged a year pass to the park system, then headed for a hike! We explored the Door/Window area and did a couple of hikes here. The boys loved climbing all over the rocks and freaking me out in the process.

We continued around the loop to the Fossil Exhibit Trail then stopped at I think the Yellow Mounds Overlook pictured below. 

Pinnacles Overlook is another beautiful place to stop and here we saw some bighorn sheep which was fun!

We finished the loop seeing our first buffalo of the trip, a bald eagle and a cute little owl. Then our cabin was ready!

We ate a premade dinner-Chicken Tetrazzini and the kids swam while we did a quick load of laundry. 

Back out after dinner to watch the sunset. We started closer to the entrance of the park but then raced a little bit further in when we realized it wasn't going to be very great there. It was worth it!

We drove through the park again on our way to Rapid City and stopped to do one more hike in the morning. This was Cliff Shelf Trail which was a nice walk with pretty views. 

Dave was using his range finder to judge the distance to basically everything during the trip.