South Dakota pics
Jul. 7th, 2008 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psyche29All right, so I finally got my pics off my camera. I resized some of them and uploaded them to my photobucket, so now I can share them with y'all.
I hated the idea of camping before I went. Now I'm back, and I can say with absolute certainty that I LOATHE camping. Well, I suppose I have mixed feelings. We reserved our campsite online - it was a nice campsite, the pictures were true to what we actually had.
Almost.
The pictures looked like they were two campsites, right next to each other and on flat ground. Oh, no. They were up a steep-ass hill, and ours was at the top. Hello? Fat people can't climb hills!! And I discovered, too, that every time I got up to the damn tent, I had to go right back down to go to the bathroom. EVERY. TIME.
ANYWAY. Got there Thursday, June 19th a little after noon. Finally got everything up that damn hill, set up our tent with no trouble. Got everything inside. Then a thunderstorm rolled in. A four-hour-long thunderstorm, complete with giant, marble-sized hail. The pics I have of the hail make it look sparse, but believe me, it looked worse before I managed to snap some pics.
So anyway, the four of us (hubby, Mikey, Amanda and me) were spooning through most of the storm because it was freezing. When it stopped, we all had a bit of dinner, had a nice fire for a couple hours, then went to bed. I was up an hour later, and let's just leave it at "worst night of my entire life. BAR. NONE." If you really want the gruesome details, I'll tell you - but we'll leave it there for now.
That evening it got down to about 40 degrees, and down to 45 the next night. The air mattress we brought along was out of air before bedtime the first night even came along, so I didn't sleep well at all the whole trip - and I had really strange dreams the last two nights.
But all the storms and the horrible nights aside, Saturday and Sunday were absolutely beautiful days; those kind of made up for the crummy weather the first two afternoons.
A mine somewhere outside of Rapid City; iron, silver and gold was/is mined here.
Some big-ass gear belonging to some big-ass machine used for mining; that's Amanda and Mikey in there.
Same big-ass gear; that's Matt (hubby). Picture turned out really well, actually. ;)
We went to this cave that had a waterfall inside it - Thundering Falls? Thunderhead Falls? Something like that...anyway, there's a huge waterfall 600 feet inside the cave, and this one is a secondary fall just outside the cave entrance.
Matt, Mikey and Amanda outside the cave with the falls.
Our tent, obviously.
Bunny and John's tent, a little way down the hill. Yeah, that's some of the hail on the ground.
More hail.
And yes, more hail.
John didn't quite get the hang of cooking on the fire till the day before we left, so we had scrambled bacon pancakes for breakfast the first morning. XD
Amanda with her favorite knife - she was so happy to have the chance to actually use it.
After dinner one evening, around the campfire. Matt was playing with my camera, apparently.
This bridge looked so neat, all triple-level and stuff...and it was made mostly of wood! We thought it was pretty cool. Yeah, we're easily impressed. ;)
Famous faces, and we were there. Very cool to see it in person.
Was a little irked we didn't get the faces in there, but Matt's camera has one of us like this that includes them, so this is fine. Besides, it's a pretty good pic, hmm?
Went to see the Crazy Horse memorial, too - it was HUGE, and it's not even half finished.
Drove the Wildlife Loop one afternoon; saw herds of buffalo, antelope by the dozens, a few wild donkeys here and there and hundreds upon hundreds of prairie dogs. And even with all those amazing things, I was more in love with those rolling hills of green...took my breath away.
I swear, my knuckles were white with the grip I had on both the camera and the car.
Quite a few of these one-lane tunnels...and the curving roads have, like, NO guard rails. John's afraid of heights when not on his own two feet, so he was sitting straight up and staring straight ahead the whole time we were on any climbing, winding road. Hee!
Amanda had a lot of fun climbing the rocks.
Mikey too, although he chickened out and didn't go higher than the two of them were in this picture.
Hit Wall Drug on our way out Monday morning - Matt has more pics than I do, this one's the best of what I have. It's Mikey on the jackalope.
Detoured through the Badlands after Wall Drug on the way home - the colors are absolutely astounding.
Another view of the Badlands - beautiful.
My disdain for camping aside, South Dakota was absolutely lovely - it's very easy to see why people would want to live there.
Makes your heart sigh a little, no? XD
I hated the idea of camping before I went. Now I'm back, and I can say with absolute certainty that I LOATHE camping. Well, I suppose I have mixed feelings. We reserved our campsite online - it was a nice campsite, the pictures were true to what we actually had.
Almost.
The pictures looked like they were two campsites, right next to each other and on flat ground. Oh, no. They were up a steep-ass hill, and ours was at the top. Hello? Fat people can't climb hills!! And I discovered, too, that every time I got up to the damn tent, I had to go right back down to go to the bathroom. EVERY. TIME.
ANYWAY. Got there Thursday, June 19th a little after noon. Finally got everything up that damn hill, set up our tent with no trouble. Got everything inside. Then a thunderstorm rolled in. A four-hour-long thunderstorm, complete with giant, marble-sized hail. The pics I have of the hail make it look sparse, but believe me, it looked worse before I managed to snap some pics.
So anyway, the four of us (hubby, Mikey, Amanda and me) were spooning through most of the storm because it was freezing. When it stopped, we all had a bit of dinner, had a nice fire for a couple hours, then went to bed. I was up an hour later, and let's just leave it at "worst night of my entire life. BAR. NONE." If you really want the gruesome details, I'll tell you - but we'll leave it there for now.
That evening it got down to about 40 degrees, and down to 45 the next night. The air mattress we brought along was out of air before bedtime the first night even came along, so I didn't sleep well at all the whole trip - and I had really strange dreams the last two nights.
But all the storms and the horrible nights aside, Saturday and Sunday were absolutely beautiful days; those kind of made up for the crummy weather the first two afternoons.
A mine somewhere outside of Rapid City; iron, silver and gold was/is mined here.
Some big-ass gear belonging to some big-ass machine used for mining; that's Amanda and Mikey in there.
Same big-ass gear; that's Matt (hubby). Picture turned out really well, actually. ;)
We went to this cave that had a waterfall inside it - Thundering Falls? Thunderhead Falls? Something like that...anyway, there's a huge waterfall 600 feet inside the cave, and this one is a secondary fall just outside the cave entrance.
Matt, Mikey and Amanda outside the cave with the falls.
Our tent, obviously.
Bunny and John's tent, a little way down the hill. Yeah, that's some of the hail on the ground.
More hail.
And yes, more hail.
John didn't quite get the hang of cooking on the fire till the day before we left, so we had scrambled bacon pancakes for breakfast the first morning. XD
Amanda with her favorite knife - she was so happy to have the chance to actually use it.
After dinner one evening, around the campfire. Matt was playing with my camera, apparently.
This bridge looked so neat, all triple-level and stuff...and it was made mostly of wood! We thought it was pretty cool. Yeah, we're easily impressed. ;)
Famous faces, and we were there. Very cool to see it in person.
Was a little irked we didn't get the faces in there, but Matt's camera has one of us like this that includes them, so this is fine. Besides, it's a pretty good pic, hmm?
Went to see the Crazy Horse memorial, too - it was HUGE, and it's not even half finished.
Drove the Wildlife Loop one afternoon; saw herds of buffalo, antelope by the dozens, a few wild donkeys here and there and hundreds upon hundreds of prairie dogs. And even with all those amazing things, I was more in love with those rolling hills of green...took my breath away.
I swear, my knuckles were white with the grip I had on both the camera and the car.
Quite a few of these one-lane tunnels...and the curving roads have, like, NO guard rails. John's afraid of heights when not on his own two feet, so he was sitting straight up and staring straight ahead the whole time we were on any climbing, winding road. Hee!
Amanda had a lot of fun climbing the rocks.
Mikey too, although he chickened out and didn't go higher than the two of them were in this picture.
Hit Wall Drug on our way out Monday morning - Matt has more pics than I do, this one's the best of what I have. It's Mikey on the jackalope.
Detoured through the Badlands after Wall Drug on the way home - the colors are absolutely astounding.
Another view of the Badlands - beautiful.
My disdain for camping aside, South Dakota was absolutely lovely - it's very easy to see why people would want to live there.
Makes your heart sigh a little, no? XD
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-07 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 01:10 am (UTC)And the jackalope was just too cute to pass up! :)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-07 07:27 pm (UTC)You're so lucky to have somewhere as nice as that close enough that you can go camping.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 01:12 am (UTC)And thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-07 07:32 pm (UTC)Your campsite looks really nice, but that stinks it was up hill. Dude if I had to pee in the middle of the night I wouldn't be able to get down! And it is crazy that you guys had such awful storms.
But, the pictures are beautiful!!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 01:14 am (UTC)And thanks! XD
no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 06:07 pm (UTC)