Monday, June 11

Where to begin?! We finally arrived in Buffalo, WY...after some amazing traveling through South Dakota! Monday morning we were up early and headed to the Badlands in SD...if you have never been, you are truly missing out! Took the scenic loop and we're true tourists when we stopped at Prairie Dog town. The kids were in heaven...not sure the prairie dogs were though....seeing a 40 lb 2 yr old barreling at you full speed (while yelling at the top of his lungs) is bound to freak any small creature out :) They seemed fond of Calen though and before we even spent the 50cents on peanuts (official prairie dog food I guess)....they were climbing all over him. Of course, prairie dogs are known to carry all sorts of scary diseases, but no worries, my children have probably been exposed to a number of them through daycare! Needless to say, Trevor and the boys had a blast. We had to buy the official prairie dog stuffed animal...only $4.99. The tantrums that were thrown if the prairie dog fell on the floor of the van while traveling weren't always fun...but alas, the kids are in love the them...Calen has affectionately named his "Prairie"....so creative :)

Calen, the Prairie Dog whisperer!

Where'd they go?

Checking out the hole!

Our next stop was the Visitor Center in the Badlands so the boys could become Official Junior Rangers. They sat through the presentation (well, Calen sat...Brodie doesn't know the meaning of the word)....and were very excited at the chance of seeing an actual rattlesnake (thank heavens we did not as I'm sure Trevor would have sacrificed all of our lives to get just one shot of a rattlesnake!). We did some hiking and Calen is a true climber....I was amazed! and, to Calen's delight, we got to meet not one, but TWO real paleontologists!

taking the Junior Ranger oath! Brodie was so serious!

We finally got back in the car and continued our drive through the park....the boys passed out and didn't wake until we were in Rapid City. We ended up camping for two nights at an awesome Campground (Sheridan Lake...part of the National Park system). Quiet, right on the water...it was extremely serene.


Brodie quote:


Look mommy, dolphin (while pointing at some prehistoric sea creature), moose (while pointing at a buffalo head), and buffalo (while pointing at cattle). He's got a good vocab, but we're still working on labeling things correctly!

Calen: Mom, paleontologists and archeologists are not the same.....one looks for animals bones and the other one (looks at me questionably) ....Me: looks for people bones....Calen: Yea, yea...looks for people bones...