2021 Trip Day 4

We woke up at 5:30AM in Sage Creek Campground in Badlands National Park. It was a cool morning. There was both a rabbit and a buffalo (and lots of prairie dogs) in camp.

We were hoping that the cool morning would be a great opportunity for animal watching. On the top of our list was to see a male big horn sheep (we had only seen the females before). We drove to the front gate through Badlands National Park buy our annual park pass. We saw the big horn sheep! We also saw more buffalo, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope.

For lunch we have had the "Sioux Taco". It's fry bread with buffalo and beef, salsa, olives, beans, and sour cream. It was really good but I forgot to take a picture. Next to the lodge is a tree with some picnic tables under it which made a great place to eat our lunch. We tried to take a nap back at our campsite but it was too hot. Because animals are not allowed on the trails in badlands we often trade off to see things while someone stays with the pets (it's way too hot to leave a pet in the car unattended even with the windows cracked). It got too hot for us to sit in the car also so we made the decision to remove our reservation for the night from the book in Sage Creek and keep driving.

While we were traveling there was a lot of smoke in the air from the wildfires in the Western United States. For my photos I used a UV filter on my camera. We drove into Wall and made a quick stop by the National Grasslands Visitor's Center. One of my favorite things we picked up was a "Pocket Guide to Northern Prairie Birds". If you collect National Park stamps, there are also stamps at the National Grasslands locations. We ended the day by driving to our favorite place in the world (besides our home) Hot Springs, SD. We swam at Cascade park and Cascade Falls before going to our camp for the night.