They Call It the Badlands for a Reason!

Woke up mad early to shower and clean up camp before we headed out. Let me tell you Blue Mound State Park has the nicest bathrooms and showers I've seen in camping sites!

Hot showers was a wonderful morning surprise!  I was totally ready to brace myself for the cold shock morning rinse, but when I let the water run for a few seconds, BOOM! Hot water! Such a nice surprise!

Packed up at left Blue Mound and got gas around 8:00am.  Since we were almost on the border between Minnesota and South Dakota, we hit the lower Dakota state around 8:30am CST give or take (I wasn't really paying attention).  

10:15am CST we crossed the bridge over the Missouri River!  And then we hit another gas pit stop a half hour later.

I totally forgot that we were going to cross our final time zone half way through South Dakota!  So my timing may be a smidge off (well an hour earlier) from what I write from now until after we left the Badlands NP.

Roughly around 11:30 MST (I think!) and about 280 miles later we hit the Badlands National Park in Pine Ridge, SD.  As a geology lover this was sooooo cool. The colors you saw were extremely similar to what Nate and I saw at the Painted Desert. Well, not as vibrant but the banding reminded me of it.  

We stopped in the visitors center to speak with a ranger on what they thought was the best route to go to enjoy the Badlands.  They recommended going to Conata, a little picnic area where you get some clear access into Badlands' prairie and fossilized soils!

It was so cool to walk up and down these peaks, gullies, and buttes.  Although it was pretty hot, I think the temperature said about 80 degrees. Which I usually don't mind however no trees lead to no shade and mega dehydration.

We were originally going to camp here but I could tell after the hike we were a little hesitant.  Nate remembered a place that is past the Badlands, called Custer State Park. So we continued through the Badlands and traveled about 225 miles outside Hemosa, SD.

5:30pm MST we entered the Custer State Park.  It is so beautiful here!  It reminds me a little like Tahoe in NV.  Mountainous, rocky, cool, forested and full of life!  (Well a different life compared to the Badlands).  

We reserved a campsite in the Lower Campground of the Center Lake Area (Elev. 4686 ft).  On our way to our site, we got an up close and personal sighting of Buffalo!!!! Ahhh, fell in love all over again!!!

Made our way to our site, set up camp and on our way to relaxation in a cool, SHADED area.

While Sean relaxed at the site, Nate and I went to the Center Lake. It was soooo nice to swim in this lake.   It was mostly a gravel bottom that dips off into a deeper lake. I didn't even attempt to try to determine the depth. Haha. But Nate and I swam to this rock cliff thing jutting out into the lake. Nate was in hopes that he could climb it and fall into the water, but to our disappointment there were many shallow submerged rocks that definitely prevented any form of jumping into the water.  It was really cool to see the geology in it: there was a basaltic dike!

After the evening swim, we ate tacos over the stove and then sleep time!

For Thursday: since we made it a little farther than we planned, we had a communal discussion to stay here another night and explore the Wind Cave National Park, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Mount Rushmore!

Xoxo,

TheChristyBel

Chompin' Miles to Minnesota

Before I continue with my current adventures, Nate, Sean, and I have been visually recording our adventure on Instagram! If you want in to see the trip, we've been tagging everything with the #wyomingorbust hashtag.  Check it out!

540 Miles of Pure Fields and Highway to Blue Mounds!

Anyways, back to the journey: The Western Adventurers woke up mad early to shower, breakfast, and pack up from Nate's Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria.  We were out and about to put some gas and miles on the cars at 6:45am CST.

Gorgeous views of the sunrise leaving Joliet

Around 8:38am we crossed the Illinois borders into Wisconsin.  We passed so many windmill farms along the way.

Wind Power - it's the new green!

Geology...it's getting better as you go west!

10:00am brought a pit stop and gas fill up and then an hour and a half later we entered the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin.  

The city where we ate lunch and saw Grandad's Bluff

Aunt Ria suggested this area for a lunch and rest area.  There was a really cool bluff that we could drive up to that had a great view!  Had lunch in town then made our way to Grandad's Bluff at 12:45pm CST.

You could see it from town!

Great views!

Summit Posing our way west!

WHATTTT!?!?!

I need to learn western & central plants...womp.

After getting a great view of the Mississippi River and the La Crosse floodplain, we went back on the road. 

Mississippi River!

More Windmills!

The only thing that was keeping us from going insane!

We crossed into Minnesota at 1:30pm.  

Nate discovered a little treat along our way. So at 3:45pm, we pulled off I-90 and into Blue Earth, MN.  Off the highway awaited a Jolly Green Friend, the Green Giant Statue!  It was hilarious!

Visiting our Jolly, Green Friend!

There are no words for the moments we had!

For the next two hours (5:30pm CST) we pounded through and finally came upon our destination for day 3: Blue Mound State Park.  This was a really pretty place to car camp for the night.

Chert at Blue Mounds!

We picked out a nice grassy site and while the boys did a quick run around the park roads, I took a stroll to drop off the camp registration and look at the new flora and fauna on the site.  So many things I didn't recognize, made me feel pretty in knowledgeable but it was still pretty cool to see new things.  Also we saw some really cool geology and potential bouldering areas.  Nate claimed that this magenta, purple rock was chert. It's texture was so smooth and the crystallization was really cool to see too!  Totally wish we made some time and try it out.  Oh well!

When we all got back to the site, we grabbed our swim suits and headed to the lake on site.  As we were walking we saw a herd of bison grazing in the summer field!  I got so excited!  We were definitely going to have to stop there before heading back to camp.

The lake we swam in was so nice; after a whole 7-8 hours of driving it was a nice way to cool off.  It was pretty amusing that the area they roped off for swimming was only about 2-3 feet in depth!

Swimming in knee high waters!

Totally went all the way under!

Next stop: the BISON! Oh my gosh, my highlight of the day!  It was so amazing to see these things in person.  However, they were pretty far away from the viewing stand.  We had to look through the lookout telescope thing to see them.

I totally used it with my phone to take photos!  There were huge profound males with those broad shoulders, big heads, and horns, and then there were a few babies all prancing around their mothers.  I literally fell in love!

Heart Started to Explode!

Buffalo in the Summer Grazing Field!

After my heart just exploding, we headed back to camp, got the fire going, watched the sunset, ate pita pizzas over the fire, then sleep.  We were soooo exhausted, I literally passed out as soon as I hit my pad!

Poor Little Guy - He had no eyes!  But seemed to be doing well for himself!

Wednesday's Agenda will include heading to the Badlands National Park!  Get ready for the first legit GEO-ness portion of the trip!

Xoxo,

TheChristyBel

Prairie-Living for the Night!

In Search of the Chicago Dog & Deep Dish Pizza

Aunt Ria & Uncle Nacho's...it's where the party's at!

Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful, sunny, great temperature day to explore the interworkings of Chicago.  Nate's Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria were incredibly wonderful and took great care of us while we were in town.

We decided to be tourists for the day and see what there is to see in downtown Chicago.  Aunt Ria recommended we go see Millenium Park, the Sears Tower aka the Willis Tower, and Navy Pier.  We also were very curious where to get the best local Chicago Dog and Deep Dish Pizza!

Jay Pritzker Pavillion

After about an hour driving east back into the city (Joliet is a little northwest of the city), we parked in the one of the garages for Millenium Park around 10:00am.  Strolled around the block and hit this huge tourist attraction.  We saw Jay Pritzker Pavillion. 

You gotta see this when it is jam-packed full of people and live music!

This was by far, one of the coolest outdoor stage areas ever!  I mean even on the green, there are speakers above you, so you get a clear perfect sound!  So cool; I definitely want to come back and visit and definitely see something here!

Touring it up in Chicago!

Next stop, Cloud Gate, aka The Bean!  This is what I really wanted to see. Don't judge me that I wanted to be a tourist and see this famous icon that's in a lot of movies! Haha. This thing was so cool and beauitful!  

Drop of Mercury!

The Bean!

We stopped to talk to a security guard named Dave, and have us some lovely little facts about this resemblance to a drop of mercury.  To hear that this thing was constructed with a steel frame and then a few hundred steel plates that were welded and polished with plasma welding to make it so shiny and smooth was remarkable to hear!!! Going underneath it was a little crazy: you see so many reflections!

So many reflections!

Pootsy!

Next on the list was right next to the Bean: these two really cool block tower fountains.

This place is awesome...a great idea to cool off in the city!

Had to take these two kiddos here to play in the water!

This was fun, you could take your shoes off and splash around!  And if you were a little more daring, like a lot of the children were, you could go all in and get wet!

And there were many other children they could play with!

As we left Millenium Park, we attempted to go see the Willis Tower, got in line, and then was told there was about 2 hours of waiting.

After some team collaboration, we decided to come back and wait until the crowd died down.  Plus it was getting close to lunch time and we were starting to crave some dogs...! 

Along the river, such a beautiful sight!

Postcard worthy, right?!?

On our way to Navy Pier we got to walk along the river that led into Lake Michigan.  I really do like Chicago, unlike a lot of other cities I've been to, Chicago is by far the most beautiful.  I really appreciate the beauty that each of e buildings individually have and how there is an unique balance between what is city and nature and water.  Very cool!

If only they were kayaks!

There were also a lot of sculptures and statues to look at.  Two that I really liked was this enormous sculpture of aluminum canoes and a line of children holding hands.  Very cool!

This is how I am going to take children on hikes!... Just Kidding!

Navy Pier housed a hot dog company, The American Dog, where we could get the local Chicago Dog!  Please note I rarely eat Hot Dogs...like ever!  But you know putting my particular eating habits aside and take part in this moment.  I might a well since I'm hear and can say I've done this!

I gave in and had a hot dog!  When in Chicago, right?!

Not going to lie, despite the fact I rarely eat hot dogs, the Chicago dog was really delicious!  A Chicago dog had a onions, sport peppers, celery salt, mustard, relish, tomato, AND, a pickle! All on a poppy seed bun.  It was really good-not that this now means I'll incorporate hot dogs into my diet, but it was good for the first time trying it!

Next as we were exploring the pier, we came across a whole bunch of water tours.  The one that stuck our fancy was the one boat tour of a pirate sailor in front of this huge sail boat!

All Aboard!

Tall Ship Windy was a really cool impromptu decision.  We made the 2:15pm tour and right before we headed to get on the boat, we decided to all get drinks.  Beers for the boys and a huge Jack and Diet for me, however, bad decision on our part when we tried to step aboard, they told us we couldn't bring outside drinks onto the ship.

Had to totally chug my drink in a minute before we set sail!  Totally summoned my inner college undergrad self and chugged the whole thing!  Gah!  Prepare yourself for some drunken postings! Just kidding!

Helping raise the sail with our new friend, Ginger!

About to set sail we got to assist on raising the sails! So cool! Sean and I were the peak on the main sail while Nate and our new friend, Ginger, were on the neck.

Sailing on Lake Michigan!

Such a cool view on the water!

The view on the water of the city was absolutely gorgeous!  And the water was so blue-green!  A wonderful ride relaxing on the water and enjoying the sun and the tour!

A few beers and drinks in on the water!

By the time we finished the boat tour, it was about 3:30pm, and we took a can back to the Willis Tower.  Our can driver was from Turkey and he told us about stories about some of the passengers he has driven in the past while we waited in traffic.

Side Note: I did not know that the Sears Tower was renamed and changed to the Willis Tower! So weird! Must be nice to have a lot of money and be able to buy out famous places and change their name. Haha.

It took a few hours to finally go up here.

About to head up to the Sky Deck!

Thinking it was getting later in the day, maybe we'd have a better and quicker chance of getting to the Sky Deck!

Still waiting...

Little did we know that we still had about 3 hours of waiting to do before we got to go up. Let me tell you, every time we 'completed' a line, just around the corner there was another line waiting for us to wait in.  

Then around 7-7:30pm we were finally able to rise up 100 floors in about 60 seconds to the Sky Deck!

Gorgeous views!

The wait was definitely worth it!  The views of the entire city was so cool!

This was a terrifying but cool experience!

Then there were the Sky Ledges!  This was really cool and very scary.  These things jutted out from the building and were completely all see through!

Look down below!

You could go out and literally look down and see the city under your feet!

Can't keep looking down!

We tried to summit pose in such a tiny area!  So below is the photo in our attempt to summit pose at the top of the Willis Tower!

Summit Posing at the top of Willis Tower

We finally called it a day from Chicago and returned back to Uncle Nacho and Aunt Ria's house for some deep dish pizza and some strumming from 2 of the 3 Lightning Jar boys overlooking the sunset!

Ending the Chicago day with Chicago deep dish and a great sunset!

Monday was a great day relaxing and taking a break from long drives.  We definitely conquered Chicago and I hope that I can one day in the future visit this really awesome town and explore it a little more deeply!

DE-LIC-IOUS!

I'll end on this photo!

Tuesday, we will be heading about 8 hours northwest to Blue Mound State Park in Minnesota.  Stay tuned for more adventuring!

Xoxo,

TheChristyBel

TheChristyBel Conquered Chicago!