Traveling Home and Airport Lounges

Our vacation has come to an end and today is travel home day.  We'll be traveling via DFW and are looking forward to using our free lounge access that came along with a recent credit card acquisition.  

First stop at DFW is for free lunch/dinner at The Club DFW!  

Next we ride the automated people mover to transfer terminals and check into minute suites for a brief nap! Thanks for connecting it, Dad! 

Our access gives us one free hour at Minute Suites.  When we first attempted to check in, they were all full, but the door is right by our gate so we just sat down outside anyway and asked them to let us know if something came open.  It did and we were able to spend an hour chilling in private.  

If the timing was right, Wifey could see this being useful for a quick private conference call for work etc, but overall an hour in this small room with "daybed", desk, and tv ... not really that nice of a perk.  Also, the food here isn't free :(  Totally lame! 

 

Mammoth Site

Today we visited the Mammoth Site!  This is an archaeological site where many many Mammoths have been uncovered.   It appears that a pit of sorts was present here and became a trap where many Mammoths died and their remains were preserved.  

The Mammoth site is impressive and well designed for educating visitors.  Various points of interest are marked with numbered flags etc and along the walking path there are numerous auto guide stops where you can listen to a description of what you are viewing.  

Depending on time and day, you can also watch scientists at work examining samples.  

At the end of the visit is an area with two hands-on displays.  Below is a photo and linked a video of the Stream Table.  We ended up spending quite a while experimenting with the water and sediment movement.  

Mobile Video Link:  Stream Table

 

Badlands NP and Deadwood

Badlands National Park is quite small with stunning scenery.  We set our alarms and arrived at the park just before sunrise so we could take some photos as the sun came up over the land.  

Driving from viewpoint to viewpoint we also paused to see some wildlife. 

Due to its small size and our general exhaustion at this point of traveling, Badlands NP only took us the morning allowing for an afternoon trip up to Deadwood.  We went to Deadwood with basically no plan or research, but enjoyed walking around the city and stumbling onto a shootout recreation in the middle of the street!  It was an entertaining experience of the Wild West.

On the way home we saw a sheep? goat? animal of some sort! 

 

Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park is a bit south of Rapid City, SD.  Honestly this was an add-on to our trip itinerary due to its geographic convenience.  We'd decided to go to Rapid City mostly to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.  Expanding google told us that Wind Cave as well as Badlands National Park were near by so "why not?"

Wind Cave NP is named for the local underground cave, which was discovered after wind blow from its entrance around 1881.  The landowners of the property began exploring and mapping the cave and it eventually was made a NP in 1903.  We arrived at the park and checked in for our cave tour several hours ahead of time, inquiring if we could get on an earlier tour.  We were denied but asked the rangers for suggestions for what else to do in the park until our tour.  

One suggestion was to check out a hike near the Prairie Dog village on the north end of the park as well as generally drive around and see the local bison herd.  We still didn't know it, but this would be the beginning of Wifey's OBSESSION with prairie dogs.  

The hike ended up being a no-go due to wildlife warnings, but we paused as we drove back by the Prairie Dogs and began to watch them interact and generally live life!  

We even brought one a Prairie Dog of our own!  

The cave tour itself was the most disappointing part of Wind Cave National Park.   The group for the tour was pretty large and there were no noticeable physical fitness requirements.  Yes, there were some stairs, which would limit some folks access, but compared to prior cave's we'd explored, this one was ... lame.  

Leaving the cave, however, we set up and watched the bison herd meander.  The coolest thing we witnessed here was two older male bison heping a baby cross the road. 

unprotected baby in a field

men-folk begin to flank the baby

protected road crossing

across safely

Just after they made it across the road, the baby continued on it's "own", safely within the grassy areas.

Wild Turkeys

Upon returning home, we used our gracious AirBNB host's grill and cooked up some dinner!  On the menu was steak, hot dogs, sausage links, and squash.  It was fantastic!  Generally when we do National Parks we pack an ice chest and eat sandwiches (lunchmeat or PBJ) and chips and apple or orange slices.  We like instant oatmeal or grits for breakfast.  A microwave makes these super convenient, but in a pinch we've pulled them off using a coffee maker too.

 

Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, and Crazy Horse

Continuing east, our first stop today was at Devils Tower.  We took a few pictures as we drove in, and explored the visitors center before tackling the Red Beds Trail encircling the tower.  This just under 3 mile trail took us about an hour to complete.  Wifey was proud to complete the loop with an average speed of under 20 minutes per mile.  A significant uphill section around the two mile mark almost prevented this but we persevered.  

Where's Wifey!?

There she is!

 

After hiking the trail, we stopped by Prairie Dog town to figure out what is so great about these "Prairie Dogs".  Our pictures were not impressive.  Just you wait, however, (SPOILER WARNING) ... we found more Prairie Dogs later in the trip and became obsessed!!

The Mt. Rushmore National Memorial included access to a pretty cool museum describing the efforts to build the memorial.  Mr. Rushmore itself is huge and the viewing opportunities at such a distance that this visit was a tad disappointing.  Hiking the cliffs or something similar would likely be more worth it, but isn't/wasn't an option. 

We were able to see Crazy Horse from the road, but didn't actually access the site.  It and Mt. Rushmore are on a circular audio tour of the area which we listed to as we drove and enjoyed the scenery.