Mount Rushmore, Buffalo Burgers, and the Badlands

Today was filled with a few things. First stop was Mount Rushmore. When we began planning this trip Scarlett was so excited to see the Heads! She would tell everyone that the Heads were on her list. I am not sure she was still as excited today but it was fun to visit Mount Rushmore and earn another Ranger Badge.

We then headed to Wall Drug, in Wall South Dakota. We wanted to eat a Buffalo Burger! Faith decided on a Buffalo Hot Dog instead! The other girls got "regular" food. Wall is the home of the free ice water and also 5 cent coffee! The story is very interesting. Check it out! 

Our last stop for the evening was the Badlands NP. It was beautiful. We drove through in the evening so we got to see many Big Horn Sheep and hundreds of Prairie Dogs! The sunset was stunning. Our campsite is in the Badlands so we ended the evening with a campfire and smores! 

By the way, my selfie stick broke. Now I have to ask people to take our photo! :) 

Devil's Tower NP

We are officially on the return trip. It is bitter sweet. I have a few more stops on the way home but nothing compares to what we have seen or done. Today was a long day of driving. The last part of the drive we saw so many deer, more than we have ever seen in our lives! That was kind of fun. We camped right beside DTNP. This campsite plays the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind every night! Funny. Any of you seen it? I would have bought it for the trip home but it was $30! I can get it on Amazon for way less. Which reminds me, I have been carrying around 2 redox movies for over a week! Maybe I will find a place to return them tomorrow!

Elk, Bison, and Bear...OH MY!

We let the kids sleep in today. By the time we got our "breakfast" it was noon! After Alaynea and Joel did some homework we headed into Yellowstone a bit later so we could be there late tonight. We headed up to Mammoth, a great place to just sit and watch the Elk. It is not hard to find the Elk in this area. We have seen so many from little young ones to old mature ones with Ginormous Antlers! The Bison are plentiful as well. We know exactly where to drive to see herds of Bison right alongside the road! Our plan tonight was to stay late to try to see some wolves. We knew the two areas that they had been seen recently. We had been driving for a while and after deciding to turn around to go somewhere else, we noticed some cars pulled over. We asked them what they were watching and they showed us where a dead Bison lay on top of a hill. We decided to get the chairs out, eat some PB&J's and wait. Just before dark two here came TWO Grizzly Bears over the hill! We were pretty excited! We were able to see them go straight for their supper! It wasn't wolves but it was GRIZZLIES! It was perfect ending to a wonderful time at Yellowstone!

 always time for ice cream!

 Mammoth Hot Springs.

 This was the Grizzlies. We had great binoculars. Wish we could zoom in more!

Who is the goat?

Todays yellowstone adventure was zip lining and ropes courses! We took a day off from the park to have some other kind of fun! We also did a little shopping in the town of West Yellowstone too! Scarlett found a place with .50 ice cream cones so we took advantage of that! More than once! We also tried some yellow"scones" that were delicious.  It would appear that NONE of the Hartzler's have a problem with heights! Except for me. The kids all left me behind. Scarlett did not even want to hang with me, she wanted to go with the big girls. :) There was a challenge on the course called the Goat Challenge. Joel knocked it out right away! He got a free t-shirt out of it! Joel is a Goat!  Lots of great fun! Corey andI are always looking for business ideas! This is one we really liked! :)