Let's do a little catch up!

Today is Friday the 13th!  Our wonderful daughter-in-love, Kaitlyne's, birthday!!  We hope she is being spoiled.  

This morning we left South Dakota and we are now in Wyoming headed to Yellowstone via the Grand Tetons.  

Last night we spent our 2nd night at Custer Crazy Horse Campground, it was quite nice. Bathrooms super clean (yes we use the campgrounds amenities for showers and toileting space).  If it's clean I'm down with that.  That has always been one of the ways I judge a campground.  When the boys were little (before booking something on the internet) we would drive to a campground, I would do a bathroom check and if clean enough we could stay, if not, keep moving on to the next one.  I'm sure it was super annoying to John, but if he wanted me to camp with them, that was the requirement.  Ok, big digression, anyhoo, we had a beautiful day and it started to rain as we arrived back to our site.  It then started to storm.  It was beautiful from inside our RV.  But we were most intrigued by the rolling thunder.  It's not something we had ever experienced before and it lasted a long time.  Minutes!  Very cool!  John & I love thunder storms so we embraced it.  💖☔🌩

After we left our friends on Sunday we spent the night in South Sioux City, Nebraska at Scenic Park Campground.  It was just to sleep, but all the Harvest Hosts were full and Cracker Barrel wasn't convenient, so we grabbed this.  A city run campground so on the less expensive side.    

Seen at the campground as we were pulling in.

Before we left in the morning, John did a little shoring up of things so the ride wasn't so noisy.  

First stop after this was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.  It was good excuse to stretch our legs and many people asked if we were stopping there.  It was a smidge interesting, but can't say that I'd find it worth it to return  (If you were one of the ones who recommended it, don't take our opinion personally please) We recommended Salem, MA to someone visiting MA and they chose not to go based on a review they read that said it was corny- which I think was the Salem Witch Museum, and that part was corny, but the rest of it I feel like they missed out on so much history.  Point is, not everyone enjoys the same things, so our experience is just that, ours.  Now, even though we weren't overly impressed with it, we did take pictures.  

First view of it!

Obligatory pic together 

It's actually an event center/auditorium/sport complex.

                                    

At this time of year they remove this seasons corn/art and start hanging the new design

Look at all that corn they took down already

I guess seeing all that corn was impressive and how they created beautiful works of art. 

Now onto The Badlands National Park!!! 

We traveled another several hours to get to the Badlands.  It looks like another planet.  It is beautiful.  They were getting a heat wave, so it was quite hot!!!  Apparently, not the norm.  95 - ugh!!  Here's our first views of the Badlands.

We tried for a camping spot inside the park, but the pay campgrounds were full and the free boondocking spots were known to get very windy.  Some of the reviews I read were enough to scare me off, so we opted for The Badlands Hotel and Campground which was yards away from the entrance.  Pretty cool views.  

view from the campground

a panoramic of that view

The sun was amazing

so beautiful

I needed a clearer view and met this little guy on the walk over.  Not skittish at all. 

Check out this bad boy that was parked across from us!!  It's a damn semi-truck!!!

We ended the night with a nice grilled meal, followed by the presidential debate.  The weather had cooled off by then, so it was comfortable enough to sit outside.  

More about the Badlands on the next blog!