July 4th Vacation 2010-Badlands, South Dakota

This summer we decided to follow the sun and head west!

Here we are the afternoon we left home. We drove 7 hours to Moline, IL. We got there and had a little bit of time to swim in the pool. It was fun, until Dallin lost his tooth! Dallin jumped in the pool, and when he came back out, he was holding his mouth and saying "Ouch!". Mommy said, "Let me see your smile!", and sure enough his front tooth was gone! Well that's one way to knock out a loose tooth! The tooth fairy even knew where to find him at the hotel! P.S. Kaiden lost his tooth while we were still at home packing the car! That's two teeth in one day for our family!

Then next day we drove 10 hours until we got to Wall, SD. Thank goodness mommy brought her ipod, because the boys hogged the dvd player and played video games the whole time!!! There is only so much time before a video game gets old--especially when you don't get to play and you just have to watch!! So, luckily for me, mommy pulled out her ipod and I jammed out and watched Disney cartoons!!
This is pretty much what the whole drive looked like! At least in SD, it was one long straight road! :)
We pulled into Wall, SD when it was bed time, so we went to bed, got up and went to this store. It was a store a long time ago...like when there was cowboys and indians...a really long time ago! We figured we had to go, considering there where billboards every 5 minutes, starting pretty much when we crossed the South Dakota border! (which is like 6 hours from where the store was!)
Mommy was more excited than me that there was something with my name on it. She said that she was sad when she was little because there wasn't ever anything with her name on it. As you can see from my facial expression, I'm not sure what the bid deal is anyway!
Back when cowboys and indians lived, this store gave out drinks of ice cold water for FREE!!! And guess what? They still do!! I love a store that gives out free stuff!! I didn't even have to spend any money that my Nana gave me to spend on vacation!! Awesome!
Look at my grandma! Isn't she crazy...there was no way I was getting up on that jack-a-lope! To scary for me!
Ooh...I spotted some real live indians!!

After we went to the Wall drug store, we drove a few minutes to a place called the "Badlands". I was a little nervous about going there, because, seriously...who wants to hang out at a bad place. Didn't sound like any fun to me!

It wasn't at all like what I expected it to be. I was thinking more like monsters, and dark places, and scary things...not cool stuff to look at!

(p.s Mommy wasn't very much fun here--at this particular spot--she was afraid we were going to fall off, so she was a little bit on the testy side. **cough,partypooper,cough** Just because there was a total drop off, doesn't mean we are gonna die!!
Dallin and Pa
This place wasn't bad at all! Look at all these pretty colors!!
(p.s. Mommy was more fun here, because we couldn't fall off, unless we tried really hard!)
Oh, by the way, yeah, I'm an official junior ranger now! So I better not see you throwing any trash down in national parks or else I WILL report you!
Yikes! Thank goodness I didn't see or hear any of these guys!



This place was booming with wildlife! We saw bison, deer, curly horned goats (not sure what their real name is) :), prairie dogs, rabbits, and birds. It was cool!