Badlands, August 26th

  Today is the 26th, Tuesday.  We are going to the Badlands.  First breakfast of leftover steak, potatoes and eggs.  Topped off with some great OJ we were good to go.  I have been sleeping like a dream in the bed and felt great. Rick never sleeps good so felt tired as usual.  Poor man.

    I think we left around 10:15.  We had forgotten how far away the badlands is from Custer.  Once again we drove through Custer State Park and saw a huge herd of buffalo making their way through the campgrounds.  I don't know how often it happens but they were knocking down fences and the rangers were warning people to stay back from them.  One massive buffalo walked right at our car.  There was a car stopped in front and one in the back.  We were trapped if it decided to get testy with the van.  They like to rub on things and can do alot of damage to your vehicle.  It walked behind us and found a large tree to rub on.  From the looks of the missing bark I could tell it had used it before.

      The badlands is beautiful.  I must have taken 200 pictures.  The battery died on my new canon so I used the Soni.  I like that I can zoom with it better.  Note to self...get good zoom lens for the Canon.  A million times I wish I had one.  The light was not really good and there were storms building.  In one cloud we saw a funnel come down to connect to another cloud.  Fortunately it didn't become a tornado and touch down.  I got a couple of shots of it.

   It takes hours to drive through the winding roads and then a couple of hours to get back to the cabin.  The meal we had planned was out of the question so we picked up a frozen pizza and ate that.  We were both tired.  Why does driving for hours take so much out of you.  And I was burnt to a crisp from the riding.  Seems it is really easy to get burnt up in the mountains.  Closer to the sun I guess.  So anyway we sat on the deck and had a beer and then turned in early.  Tomorrow another ride...Oh goody!