South Dakota and Yellowstone National Park

I took a trip out to South Dakota and got a chance to meet my buddy Shawn's parents. They have an amazing cabin they built in the Black Hills, South Dakota. Every morning you could see the sunrise over the hills and there would be deer and wild turkey all over their property.

Main living room at the cabin

Out on the patio in the morning with Shawn's mom, Cindy.

Wild turkey in the yard (one of the dozen out there)

Sunset from the guest room

So, I messed up the blog part above but below should look more like my normal blog postings. I am using new software so it there is a learning curve ;)

At Custer State Park. I was being silly because Shawn took about 50 pictures of the lake, which I felt was excessive! This park was home to "The Needles", which are granite pillars you can climb. I have every intention of going back to go rock climbing because it looked amazing!

The Needles

The Cathedral Spires

Of course, I had to take a trip over to Mt. Rushmore. The museum there is pretty neat and explains the history of carving this massive monument.


Me at Mt. Rushmore



@ Mt. Rushmore


Badlands National Park was the next stop on my journey through South Dakota. I must say that this area is really quite amazing. It was called the Badlands because it was extremely difficult to navigate and nothing seemed to live or grow in this region. The various colors of soil you see are anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions of years old. They have found many T-rex bones in this region as well as a variety of other dinosaur bones.

Cindy and I at the Badlands

Prairie Dog playing dead


Eagle flying above the Badlands