Badlands

We arrived at the Badlands/White River KOA last night around 7pm. We arrived in our nice cozy cabin that Katie's Aunt Christy arranged for us to have since she knew it would be really hot. We hit the ground running once we got here. After parking the car we went back to the visitor center and rented a pair of recumbent bikes. We rode around the campsite and got the lay of the land. After a few turns tipping over and a few near misses with moving vehicles we returned the bikes. We then started a campfire with wood that we bought at the visitor center and some fire starters that Katie brought. I would say our fire was average compared to the other experienced campers around us. We made some Jiffy Pop and sat at our picnic table and enjoyed the nice cool weather.
The cabin has one double bed and a bunk bed. Katie called dibs on top bunk and Lauran slept on the double bed. We were sleeping well until both of us heard a mysterious noise that woke us up in the middle of the night. After speculating what we thought it was for a few moments, we both went back to sleep and woke up alive, so it couldn't have been anything too harmful.
We woke up this morning and had a nice shower in the community showers with our shower totes and shoes in hand. It reminded us of college dorm living plus bugs. We made the most of our morning shower by singing O Susanna in the shower. I'm sure the woman next to us really enjoyed it.
Our big adventure for the day was horseback riding. We found this little ranch not to far from our campsite that has horseback riding through the badlands. It was a nice ride! We were the only ones on the ride along with the wrangler. Our horses were named Buddy and George. Neither of our horses liked going up or down hills and towards the end of the ride Lauran's horse had to be lead by the wrangler because he was too busy eating all the wild flowers. Aside from the few minor mishaps, the ride was beautiful. We really appreciated the hot sweltering sun beating down on our backs mixed with the horse's smelly and frequent GI upsets ( to put it nicely).
We went for a swim at the campsite to cool off and had some nice peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Now we are taking a rest from the hot summer sun. Its about 100 degrees here today. Mom's dont worry we applied our sunscreen and are drinking lots of water.

We visited the Badland National Park in the evening due to temperature constrictions. On the drive to the park, we saw our first Buffalo of the trip. It almost looked fake because it was sooo still! It was totally tubular. We first joined Ranger Riley on a prairie walk. He was able to tell us which grasses were native to the land, and also which grasses were edible. We personally did not floss our teeth with the grass like many others on the walk due to the recent outbreak of the prairie dog plague. After the educational walk we ventured onto the trails where we met our first friends!! A 50 year old couple from Quebec who insisted on posing for landscape shots with their shitzu dogs. They are also headed to the sunny SD, and we have planned to have them over for dinner at our apartment when we arrive for an all American pork and bean dinner. We finished the night by cooking hot dogs by fire, and we must say they were the best hot dogs ever created! If travel nursing doesn't work out, we have devised a business plan DDHD (dumb and dumber hot dogs). Our Canadian friends have already agreed to back us financially. We made it an early in night in anticipation of rising at 430 in the morning


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