The Badlands of South Dakota

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting this. My words can't begin to touch the beauty so I'll just let the photographs speak to you!

If you want to view them in a larger size, just click onto the image.  Enjoy!

It had rained the night before, this made the colors even more intense!

The roads go on forever!

Of course we had to have pictures taken in front of the famous Wall Drug dinosaur! The Badlands loop road takes a short run on the Interstate 90 and past the town of Wall, where the now famous Wall Drug Store put this town on the map! We had so much fun looking here and we even got our Wall Drug Store bumper sticker! Great art galleries and just fun place to walk around!

When Chuck was in the Air Force, he and the crew he worked with, delivered 3 of these minute man missles to Langley AFB in South Dakota. Interesting side trip from Interstate 90!

Hope you enjoyed the trip through the Badlands National Park! Also wanted you to know that the restaurant there, Cedar Breaks is wonderful. I had an Indian Taco made with bison meat and Chuck had a bison burger! Hope you enjoyed the tour through the Badlands National Park!

Entering South Dakota

Coming into South Dakota was such a treat!  It is very green, it has hills and curves (unlike Kansas and Nebraska) and it is eye candy everywhere you look!

As we were getting closer to the badlands area, we started seeing ranches like this on the highway.

We camped at the Badlands RV resort, a great little campground that offered everything from horseback riding to archery! Chuck wanted to do the trail ride the first night we were there.

Chuck knows how to ride, so he didn't want some plodding trail horse, he wanted one that had some sass to him. So he requested one that hadn't been ridden for a few days and might be a bit "feisty".

The trail ride had 12 folks in the group that night. It was a 90 minute ride thru some of the badlands. Note: Taking photos from the back of a "feisty" horse ain't easy! Chuck tried, but a lot of them came back blurry. But he got this one to give you an idea.

That "feisty" horse Chuck requested, bucked him off and gave him a beautiful black eye! He has had it almost a week now and it's still very black! Poor baby!

Lake Ogallala Recreation Area, Nebraska

We left Oakley Kansas and Emily behind... (thanks for everything Em!) and traveled up highway 25 to 61 into Nebraska! Wow! Two new states for me, have never been to Kansas or Nebraska before this trip! I will remember Kansas for the wind! I will remember both for the almost empty roads. Beautiful countryside, very flat in Kansas and then it starts rolling in Nebraska. The back roads were pretty darned good too! I bet we met less than 30 cars in the 5 hour distance between Oakley and Ogallala! Saw lots of beautiful horses and ranches though!

This was the view out the back window of the Mothership when we camped at Lake Ogallala Recreation Area campground. Beautiful park but jeeeeze louise! NO SIGNS! Very hard to find once you turn off the highway! It's worth it once you drive around lost for 30 minutes or so!

The dam is right behind us and the lake between us and the dam. Very nice camp areas! Electric only, no water or sewer but there are water stations and a dump station in the park. Very nice and clean restrooms/shower areas.

Woke up to a misty, foggy morning! Good view of the dam in the background. That was a scary (for me at least) dam to cross. The road was VERY narrow! And VERY steep on both sides. Yikes!

In both Kansas and Nebraska the cottonwood trees were bloomong. All of that white on either side of the road isn't snow, it's a cotton like fluff from the cottonwood trees and it gets into everything!

We spent two days here. This is a very fine campground IF you can find it! I am getting stronger everyday and my shoulder/arm is slowly recovering.

        My Sleeping Beauty and his Two Dwarfs!

Ellis and Oakley Kansas

Emily Ogle (aka NomadWoman) and Chuck in Oakley Kansas. She workamps at a great little campground, High Plains Camping.

After Emily was finished with her workamping week, Mon, Tues, and Wed each week in Oakley KS we followed her to her hometown of Ellis KS, about 70 miles east of Oakley.  What a pretty little town! I didn't get out much as I was still very uncomfortable with my arm and shoulder from the fall.I stayed with the pain pills and read books! Chuck took these photos so we could show you Ellis from his eyes.

We were in Ellis Kansas over the Memorial Day weekend. We proudly displayed our flag!

This was once a roundhouse. Here you could turn trains around and send them back to where they just came from or they would be sent here for repairs. Ellis has a long train history.

Chuck loves trains and there were box cars for him to explore and trains passing throughout the night with comforting whistles.

This is a great little train ride for the kids! As I mentioned, Ellis was once a train town. This ride starts from the train museum and passes near the campground. Finding the train museum open was a bit challenging. It was never open when Chuck tried to visit!

This is just one of the beautiful churches in Ellis. It was across the the river from the campground.

The campground is city owned, water and electric with huge trees for shade for $15 a night in downtown Ellis. It is right on this river which is dammed up at the end of the campground. The river runs through most of downtown.

We have decided to come back here when I am feeling better so we can really check out the town!