Author: Wanda and John

We left Hardin MT this morning and drove about 2 hours west to a town called Red Lodge MT which is nestled in the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains.  We’re close to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone and will start exploring there tomorrow.  In the meantime, take a look at this video from yesterday.  Before we left Hardin we drove up to Big Horn lake.  How would you like to put in a boat here and hang out?

Here’s The RV Park that we are in until next Sunday in Red Lodge.

The Rock Creek is flowing just to the left of our site about 10 feet away.  I love the sound of water running over rocks so close to where we’re camping.

The pictures from Yellowstone should be amazing this week. Can’t wait to post. 

Yesterday we drove up to Yellowtail Dam.  I’m running out of words to describe how beautiful, amazing and awesome the views and the land are here 🙂

The dam regulates the flow of water into the Bighorn river which has become legendary as a world class trout fishery and is now the most fished stream in the state of Montana.

Yesterday was a great time to visit the Big Horn National Park and cemetary.  The cemetery marks the resting sites of soldiers from many wars including WWI, WWII the Korean War and others.  It was a good reminder of the sacrifices our veterans have made to keep us free in this country as we celebrate our Independence.

Here are more pictures from the park.  It’s so interesting to actually see where these historic events took place.  It gives you a different perspective and a greater appreciation for the people and the land.

We left the Badlands this morning and drove through the corner of Wyoming and into Montana. We’re about an hour south of Billings MT in an RV park where we’re planning to stay until next Sunday.

Then we move to Southwest Montana for another week so that we will be within visiting rage of Yellowstone Park in Wyoming.  This RV park is very nice the only problem is there’s a Dairy Queen within walking distance – YUM and someone please stop me!

We’re excited to explore this beautiful state and can’t wait to see what this week has in store for us.

In the meantime, here’s a cool video that John captured of a serious storm that rolled into the Badlands last night.  The winds shook our little RV and the thunder was so loud the ground vibrated like a bomb went off.  I’ve never heard anything like it but it didn’t seem to bother Big Guy at all.  I felt really bad for the people that were camping in tents!

That’s really how it looked, no editing, very intense – just in slow motion video.

John and I took it off road today and did a hike on the trails in the park.  We went a little off the main trail and were quickly getting lost.  All of the rocks started looking the same and we knew we had to head back before we didn’t know which way to get back.  Take a listen.  John thinks he’s hilarious 🙂

Click HERE or on the picture below to see a video of the hike.

Here are some videos and pictures from our ride around the Badlands last night.

Watch the one below until the end.  🙂

We were noticing that Big Guy was limping a little on his back paw and it looked a little red so we made an appointment with the closest Vet we could find out here.  She was in a small town about 30 minutes east of the Badlands called Kadoka.  We took our chances and rode out there.  It’s a VERY small town but the Vet was awesome.  Her name is Dr. Norma Headlee and she and her husband have been veterinarians there for 40 years. They primarily work on large farm animals like horses, cows and even bison so Big Guy was no problem for her.  He had some cattle grass or something stuck between his toes and it got a little infected but she cleaned him all up and gave him some antibiotics.  He’ll live 🙂 She took me and John on a behind the scenes tour of where they do the surgery on the big animals.  I can’t even imagine……

Here she’s showing us the machine they use to turn a cow upside down to preform cesarian sections.  She said they do about 250 a year.

Here’s me with Dr. Headlee.  I think she scared me a little!

She took very good care of the Big Guy even though he acted like a little baby.  She wrapped up his paw and he’s home resting now after his big adventure.

We packed up the RV this morning and drove an hour east to a town called Interior just outside of Badlands National Park.  We’re here for one week so John will have plenty of time to get lots of great pictures and maybe we’ll get some hiking in.

It’s so relaxing to sit at the table and look out at this view.  That’s John playing with the drone again 🙂

The drone also takes still shots.  Can you find our RV???

win a million dollars, I’m buying a little stone house on a little stream on a little plot of land up in the Black Hills of South Dakota – but just as a summer house 🙂 We took a ride today through the Black Hills and up into Custer state park through the Needles highway (pictures below) and the land is so stunning it’s like a fairytale world.

And here we are driving through the Needles you see in the picture above:

The weather changes very rapidly here and we hit a hail storm on our way up, but it cleared by the time we reached the state park.  Turn up the volume – it was loud and scary.

We drove along the Wild Life Loop Road and saw a few animals including a bison!  He was amazing – huge and stately and so beautiful.

Not sure what this animal is but I’m sure I’ve never seen one before 🙂

This is Sylvan Lake.  It looks unreal with the large boulders right in the lake.

We really enjoyed our week in Rapid City and are looking forward to moving into the Bad Lands tomorrow!

Last night was such a beautiful evening here, after our naps (which we really needed after the previously mentioned early day yesterday), we decided to go to downtown Rapid City and walk around for something to do.  What an awesome surprise to find a street music fair going on!  Here are a few sights from downtown.  You can see the street they call ‘Art Alley’ where anyone is allowed to add their pantings to the wall.  Very cool.