Day Eleven: Scary, cool, and cute all in one day!

Saturday, July 02, 2011

We drove all morning into the Badlands National Park. We even passed through a ghost town, abandoned, desolated, and creaky old houses. They were all on sale with animal skulls for decoration. Spider webs hung in the window; the shutters were falling off and were swinging in the wind. Cool, but scary! And the town was called “Scenic”.

Finally, we arrived in the Badlands National Park. And, yes, it does look and feel exactly like it sounds. It was completely dry, sandy, and rocky. The worst was that it was hot too. We had to go on a trail in the hot sun with completely no shade. Not one inch of it. The rocky and sandy mountains were right by our side making beautiful scenery but giving no shade. And then of course my dad wanted to climb it, and of course he has to drag Jasmine, who is braver than me and my mom. So they climbed up, and I followed, which probably wasn’t a good idea. My dad made me run down, and I tripped when he wasn’t looking. It was dusty and I didn’t get a big scratch. And you can probably guess I didn’t try it again, and I stayed with my mom who had never thought about trying.

After that we were walking at a different place. Signs around the place said, “BEWARE! RATTLESNAKES,” and I hoped to see one! But instead, we saw something way cuter on the fossil trail. A bunny rabbit! It was so adorably cute! He was sitting by the trail, just sitting. But when I looked closely his mouth was twitching and he was eating while standing. He didn’t use his hands, just his mouth! He was the cutest ever, and even my mom said she wanted to catch him so he would be our pet! But when I asked her if we could have a pet bunny she said no. We walked, and saw so many more! One of the had a leaf sticking from his mouth and dangling down, as if he had a green tongue and he was sticking it out at us! So so so cute! I loved bunnies!

The bunnies reminded me of the beloved prairie dogs. We were driving along, when there was a sign saying prairie dogs. Prairie dogs! We could see them! I saw them scurrying through the grass. They were chirping at each other and I saw some sharing food! Cute! Whenever they chirped, they popped out and stood up then sank back down into the grass. So sometimes you saw prairie dogs pop up and down from the grass. We had lunch listening to them chirp, which was fun!

Our day was hot, but fun, and I was ready to end it and begin another fun day tomorrow.