Thursday, July 03, 2008

Badlands Wander

Last Saturday my family and I wandered through Badland National Park... taking pictures and hiking...




The Haystack Mounds (these yellow and red striped mounds are my very favorite part of the Badlands...normally the Badlands are very dry, so the green is quite unexpected.







The prickly pear cactus are blooming insane amounts this year...so i grabbed a few pics of those too.


This lovely little guy has the auspicious name of Gumbo Lily...much prettier than it sounds!



These rounded tops and sides are what give the Haystack Mounds their names.




I was enthralled with the watercolor like valley here...I've never seen colors like this in the badlands before.



The yucca are also in full bloom

with all the rain the striations are more visible than usual.









my little guy said he was airbending...with gusts of 60 MPH plus...it was exciting.











my 14-year-old was loving the climbing at the end here...

and my 6-year-old had to follow suit.

Here's all three of my wonderful kids...
It was beautiful and wonderful...and new Badlands Yarn is around the corner....

3 comments:

dobarah said...

Gorgeous! Thank you for letting my family travel along with yours during your trip. Wow!

Anonymous said...

We were there the day before you were and just as amazed at the colors, the brilliant green. It is such a special place.

Anonymous said...

Wow! What gorgeous pictures, and how different a scenery from anything I know well. Thank you for the tour!