The Badlands

After the morning hikes in the Black Hills, we spent the heat of the day at a cafe in Spearfish, SD called The Green Bean, enjoying iced coffee, "Woodstock" wraps jammed with fresh veggies, clean bathrooms and air conditioning, while Mark got work done and Judy dug into the blog :)

Then headed to The Badlands, sighting these beauties along the way.

You can see how people out west are so spiritual.

With every minute, the colors deepened and became even more distinctive.

It was too hot to hike, so we did it all by car. Who rules the road?!!!

Finally dusk fell.

And right on schedule, the storm clouds gathered and we got our nightly text from the National Weather Service. This has been our only stressor in South Dakota.

Seventeen minutes where Mother Nature has a complete hissy fit...

And then...

...she was all smiles.

A Black Hills Morning

Woke up to this brook flowing past our window...

But enough of that. None of you want to know about the brook, YOU WANT TO SEE THE HOTEL!!! So first, we'll show you the decor...

Then the restaurant, where we gorged ourselves on nachos, fresh brook trout, bison stew in a bread bowl, apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream, bread pudding, and sour berry beers.

Stopped by the all-important Gift Shop...

And finally...here it is...the B E D. We didn't have to assemble it, crawl into it, put on the headlights to see in it, it was just THERE. Ready for us to crawl into. The room had an electric fireplace, a beautiful clean bathroom (that we didn't need to share with 75 other hikers), and a TV with more channels than Mark knew what to do with. BEST PART: Mark got to see an episode of American Greed that he hadn't seen before, but that's not even the BEST BEST PART: it was about someone he knew!!! Not sure if people actually smile in their sleep? Let me assure you, they do.

So I'll continue with our Black Hills morning: we went for an early climb up the 76 Trail.

Then took a smaller hike to Roughlock Falls in Spearfish Canyon.

Storm Clouds Gather

Back on the road, heading into the Black Hills to our first hotel. Mark is VERY excited.

These photos are real!

Feels like a tornado is coming. Eeery.

And then, when we hit the mountains, the rain hits. Wait, who's pelting our car?? That's not rain, it's hail!! Click on the photo below.

And of course, after every storm...this rainbow came within MINUTES of the hail ending.