Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Today we visited Badlands National Park.

Don't take your newly washed car here.

The Badlands consist of 244,000 acres of geologic formations and mixed-grass prairie ecosystems.

X's mark the spots where tragedy has occurred. Don't be a statistic.

One of the finished roads in the park.

The geologic formations are layers of sand, silt and clay that have joined together to form sedimentary rocks.

They are many millions of years old.

Fossils from the Eocene and Oligocene epochs have been located here in the Badlands.

Some fossils can be viewed here daily.

As far as one can see, the formations are breathtaking.

The Badlands was established as a National Monument in 1939 and then became a National Park in 1978.

Several large prairie dog communities can be found in the park.

Some more views of the Badlands follow...

An alert eye and the help of other visitors will allow you to see more animals.

Have car will travel...

Have legs will walk...

Have butt will sit...

Follow the brown dirt road...follow the brown dirt road...

For more pictures, click here pictures 1-123.

To be continued...

Pedra Goes to the Vet

Today, we visited Noah's Ark Animal Hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Pedra has spent the last two days walking back and forth between two litter boxes trying to go to the bathroom.

She hopes she can find some relief soon. She will have an enema and then spend the night.

To be continued...

Center of the Nation, Belle Fourche, South Dakota

Down this dark old gravel highway, you will find the Center of the Nation.

This sign is located several miles northwest of Belle Fourche, South Dakota.

This spot became the Center of the Nation when Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to the United States in 1959.

Not much in the way of funding has been used to spruce up this remote location.

Heading back toward Belle Fourche...

The Tri State Museum, located in Belle Fourche, boasts the official "Center of the Nation" monument.

The monument lays flat on the ground and has a diameter of 21 feet. The disk in the middle represents the center of the 50 United States.

The center of the continental United States is located in Smith Center, Kansas.

According to this sign, the new center, as of 1959, is at Latitude 41 degrees 58 minutes North and Longitude 103 degrees 46 minutes West. Okay...

For more pictures, click here pictures 136-178.

To be continued...

Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming

Devils Tower National Monument was the first declared United States National Monument, established by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

It can be seen distinctly from many miles away.

The tower is located in northeastern Wyoming above the Belle Fourche River.

Devils Tower grew in popularity when it was used in the 1977 blockbuster "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Be on the lookout for abundant deer near the monument.

Tower Trail is a 1.3 mile paved trail which encircles the monument.

Walking Tower Trail...

The monument is wider than Doug's arm span.

Tower Trail has a few easy inclines and switchbacks.

Prayer cloths are tied to trees by members of American Indian tribes as part of their religious practices.

About 4,000 visitors each year choose to climb the face of Devils Tower.

The summit of the tower falls just short of one-mile above sea level.

Did you know that American prairie dogs currently occupy only 2% of the total area which they occupied 200 years ago?

Don't feed the prairie dogs.

The KOA at the entrance to Devils Tower boasts a large deer population.

As we leave, the sun starts to set on Devils Tower.

For more pictures, click here pictures 42-135.

To be continued...