Walk Light, for these are the badlands

Spent the past few days in the badlands national park. We've since moved to the black hills area and are checking out some caves. We did a lot of hiking in the bad lands area and one the routes was slippery and wet along the side of a cliff, it felt pretty dangerous... and I'm sure it was. It gave us a great view however, and despite the bad light qualities at the time it was still definitely worth the walk. The badlands were considered good land to the native Lakota's but the french ultimately gave it the name "terre mauvais" meaning literally bad land because it was so hard to cross.

After all that hiking my shoulders are aching cause I was carrying my gear. I met a bunch of people on one of the hikes which was about 6.4 miles so it was nice to have some company while walking. Today we're going into the wind caves which have boxwork that can only be seen here or in Russia. We figured we might as well take advantage of that and see what it's all about.

I haven't had the chance to shower in about 5 days so hopefully today we'll be stopping by the hot springs and taking a swim. We're probably just going to relax today cause we need to catch up on rest. Last night there was a huge thunder storm which went on right above us for hours and hours. I went out to photograph it and came in to sleep but it was so loud that it took ages. My gear has been through alot already with the mud and dust at the badlands and tons of rain so I'm fairly confident in saying that nikon certainly weather seals it's body's properly!.

Tomorrow we'll head out early and go to deadwood w

hich is a wild west styled town. From there we'll take a scenic drive up to the devil's tower which is this amazing rock mound (google it i'm sure you'll see what I mean it's hard to explain). We'll eventually get to the old abandonned sheppards monument which is something I really want to see, and from there we'll move on to

 Wyoming.

Our route has now changed and after wyoming we'll be going up to montana to check out glacier national park.

Here are a few photos of the badlands, nothing great till I get home.

Dan

Decorah

This one's quick. No picture today as I just finished the exploring and haven't had a chance to upload them. We're in Decorah, Iowa and we went to see a beautiful waterfall as well as explore an ice cave. The waterfall was a series of small drops but formed an overall good sized fall. I'd really like to find a nice waterfall which is one solid drop with lots of water, but they're hard to come by. 

The ice cave was pretty scary, no one was there because it's kind of not advertised and I doubt as to whether any people who aren't from around here would be know about it (or at least not very many). We had to weasel our way into this small crack and I brought my photo gear in. I refused to go in by myself cause I was worried but it was really cold in there. I took a few painted with light images with my dad and I can't put them together on this computer cause it's slow. You'll have to look forward to it once I get home.

Anyway, tomorrow' we're gonna end up in South Dakota so it'll be a long drive. I finally got to talk to katie on the phone today and boy did that feel good, probably the best thing all day! haha

Anyway, out for now

Dan

Back on the road to adventure

Tomorrow I'm leaving Missouri. I haven't blogged much because I was hanging out with my grandmother and my father. We've gone out to eat a few tim

es and had some beautiful walks around Columbia, Missouri. I really like it here, it feels like a small town but it's actually the size of Halifax. It feels like you're walking around in a park and is very scenic. So I've been searching on this site www.roadsideamerica.com (thanks Brian Larter) and I've found a bunch of really weird things to see as we drive through the U.S. 

Once we leave tomorrow, we'll be going up to Decorah, Iow

a. There's apparently a beautiful waterfall and also an ice cave that is freezing cold even in the middle of summer. After that we'll be heading across south dakota and checking out the badlands, mount rushmore, another monument similar to mount rushmore called chief crazy horse (supposed to be amazing) and some hot springs. There's also an old abandonned sheppards monument which is supposed to be pretty cool. I found it on the website and apparently now it has tons of rattlesnakes and is quite dangerous but I guess we'll see I'm sure it's not too bad.

Once we get through south Dakota it's on to Wyoming where we'll check out yellowstone national park. We've also found that in Cody, there is a place t

hat from 6-6:30 every night, a mock gunfight goes on and hundreds of people show up to see it. We thought it might be pretty hilarious to check out so we'll let you know about that one.

We're skipping Montana but instead going to Idaho. On the website I found this guy called Dick who owns' dugout dick's ice cave ranch. This is not a mainstream tourist stop. Dick ran away from home years ago cause he wanted to be a cowboy. He made it to the cliffs of Idaho and we don't have 100% accurate directions because it's all very vague. He started digging into the mines that were there and built huts to help him live. Eventually people started finding him and came and visited so now he lets people come visit and stay in his mine huts if they want. He's 94 years old and in fact we don't know he'll still be alive w

hen we get there. I think it's gonna be a pretty amazing experience but if you're curious search google for "dugout dick" or something and there's a little bit of info on him but not much. To see him we have to bypass glacier park in Montana but considering we'll be seeing the rockies on the Canadian side it's the price we're willing to pay.

Finally we'll be travelling up through washington and there's supposed to be an awesome yard art museum that one guy does all himself. Many people who gone reported being brought to tears by the exhibits but I have no idea why (perhaps thats why I'm so curious).  There are also some lava tunnels you can walk through near mt st helen, and an old abandonned train tunnel where grizzly's and coyote's are all now living. The

 tunnel housed some really spooky accidents (called the old cascade tunnel) and is off limits but we found directions as to how to walk there. Apparently it just feels really scary being there and I wanna go check it out.

Anyway, This has been a long blog. I'll end it with this Image. Grandma Gertrude; the image says it all, this is her in a nutshell (if it's possible to even put her in a nutshell) She is a fanatic for gardening and lives a very natural and healthy life. It's been a real blast coming to visit.

en route to cleavland

We woke up this morning after staying at a state park in New York state. We're now on the road through pensylvania and into OHIO. I'm really interested in seeing urban centers crawling with people, whereas my dad is much more into seeing the scenery. I keep telling him "a tree is a tree" but that doesn't stop him. I haven't shot anything great yet but I did stop in at a Henry's yesterday to buy a new polarizer (B+W goodie!) and 2 rolls of black and white illford film. Word of advice to anyone travelling, you'll probably doing a lot of sightseeing during the day where there's a lot of glare from the sun. Bring a polarizer and some ND's along with you for goodness sake because sometimes they're a lifesaver. 

Soon we'll be in Cleavland and I think we're both looking forward to seeing the city. We're not really sure where to go but it's worked out so far. We're hoping to go from cleavland over to Chicago (my dad really doesn't want to go) and from there we'll go to Indiannapolis and Missouri to visit some relatives. The first few days we calculated driving about 700 KM a day, but now we're taking it slower and stopping a lot more. Anyway, hopefully i'll have some awesome photos soon but for now you'll have to settle with this. Niagra falls at night!

Niagra Falls

So today we got to Niagra Falls. Man when they say it's touristy, they really mean it. I haven't uploaded the photos yet... maybe tomorrow so you'll have to deal with an unrelated photo today. THe other thing is since i'm using this tiny laptop it's so slow that i don't have time to edit a really nice photo each time or at all. So please forgive if the images are a bit mediocre but you will see the good stuff eventually.

Niagra Falls was a truly beautiful site. I'm not easily amazed by natural wonders but I was astounded at the size of this thing. Dad and I walked around the falls for about 3 hours. Along a street named "clifton street" there were just tourist attractions after tourist attractions. Weird dungeons and ripley's museums and all sorts of arcade-esque places. We didn't do any of that stuff, but at 10 when we were walking back to the camper, everything was lit up and it was really a spectacular sight. I can't think of any other place quite like it. It was kind of like Bourbon Street in New Orleans but instead of bars it was just weird arcade games and ferris wheels scattered about.

Tonight we're staying at a motel so we final

ly got showers and we'll be able to get a great night sleep. Last night some farmers let us park the camper outside their house while we slept. Tomorrow the plan is to drive into buffalo and stay at a state park but who knows. we're not really sure where to go next but we'll probably cruise through back country off the highway and find interesting places to visit.

And Now... unrelated photo because i haven't transfered the other ones yet. This is a HydroElectric Dam in Grand Falls N.B. Apparently it has a flow 9/10 of the amount of Niagra during spring, but in s

ummer it's nearly dry as the electric station uses it all for power. This image shows all the overflow at this point, pretty impressive stuff.

On the road to Niagra

No photo today unfortunately. When I have internet I never have a good enough place to sit and get a photo ready and post it. The signal is pretty weak here, we've stopped around cornwall in Ontario and are just enjoying some fresh air. Soon we're gonna take off and try and find a place to stay the night. Last night we took an old road in new brunswick and found this old grown over drive way thing where we parked hidden from the road and buckled down for the night. So far it's been a lot of driving and we haven't done much but i'll update more and hopefully you'll get photos soon.

D Out

New Brunswick

So Today we drove to just outside of grand falls. There's probably a two hour drive until we reach the new brunswick border. We pretty much drove straight with no stops. Until we get to Niagara we're probably gonna continue to drive non stop. Dad's outside starting to cook dinner so I've gotta go lend a hand. I'm starving and wiped from just driving. We've stopped at this kind of abandoned "tourist rest area" which has no one around and is situated on top of a lonely hill. Tons of bugs outside but dads out there cookin in it. I've stolen a weak signal from this lodge but who knows when I'll get my next blog done. Here's a photo of the outside of the camper for those of you who haven't seen it.

Dan