Day 4

We were up by 7am and gaping at the views.  We started in on the huge stash of granola.

I took a bit of a walk so Emily could run around off leash.  Gathered myself, my thoughts, my feelings, prayed, and took pictures.

This is what I was calling false sunflower.  Is that right?

Because barb wire pictures are so cliche.

Our campsite from the backside.

 This grass was really neat colors ... and sharp.  I got a splinter from walking around in my chaos.  It worked itself in about half an inch.  At first I thought I had a blister, thankfully not.

We were back on the road by 10:30am.  We drove back to the Badlands Park entrance near Cactus Flat so I could have a picture of the sign.  I've taken to sign pictures so I can keep track of where we were at when and what scenery was around what town without having to write it all down.  Where was that picture?  Oh it was between this water tower and that town sign.  :)  It's working pretty slick so far!  Other than that Jeremiah has obligingly slammed on the brakes and even backed up on a few occasions when I hollered "PICTURE"!  We've got our system down and he humors me.

And then we proceeded to explore.  To touch and feel.

Pretty proud of this shot.  Like a movie.

Totally "on leash"

The boy and his dog.

Waxing eloquent ... most of the time.  :)

Selfies with a go pro.  Snort.

We drove the Badlands Loop Road and lunched in one of the valleys.

Lunch spot.  Hot as blazes.

Cloth, collapsible water bowl.  The best road kill ever.

We took Sage Creek Rim Road and various county roads....

Big horned sheep

Pesky varmit.  :)  "Allen!  Allen!  Allen!  Al!"  :P

De Bisons

... which spit us out at Wall, SD.  And, despite cries of filthy tourism, I insisted we go to Wall Drug.  There was one, I repeat one, cool shop in there, on the very south end of the building.

"Take you for a ride ..."

We did our grocery shopping at the Breadroot co-op and Walmart in Rapid City, SD.  So here's a bit of how crazy we are.  Ya'll probably know we're raw milk drinkers.  Well, there is no way I'm tracking down raw milk while road tripping, plus the boys are kinda skeptical of the non-pasteurized stuff.  But they are totally on board with non-homogenized.  So I brought my little plastic half gallon jug.  Because, you know, most of this sacred stuff comes in glass jars with an at least $2 deposit.  So what did I do?  (After I asked permission of course, cause I'm not all rebel.)  I bought my jug of milk, took in out in the parking lot, poured it into my plastic jug, and took the bottle back into the store.  It did feel kinda weird.  But the sweet girl at the checkout had been so kind as to go ahead and credit my bottle return when I checked out.  She was very gracious about the whole thing and had an "of course, why wouldn't you do that" attitude.  Bless her un-awkward self.  That's the great thing about hippie co-ops.

Then we proceeded to the Black Hills!  We followed the GPS to Sheridan Lake South Shore because Pactola and several of our other first choices were closed.  That was kinda scary.  Total blessing in disguise.  Again we arrived well after dark and some extra-gps exploring to actually find the campground.   There was no water or trash facilities, only vault toilets.  I stubbornly stuck to my menu plan for the sake of keeping up with the food I'd bought.  We licked our plates clean and rinsed the cooking dishes in about one cup of our precious water.  The dogs seemed extra thirsty as I watched them tussle over the full nalgene that eventually ended up in their bowl.  We opted not to filter lake water.  Lesson learned.  Fill every available water container at every available time and buy some more water containers.

Still in Rapid.  Walmart parking lot.  Scariest Walmart yet.