Our Trip Blog

The Events of Thursday, July 22 2010)

This morning was our last at the Kenigsbergs’ house. We readied for the day, had a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast (cooked by Christina Kenigsberg), then packed up all of our things and waved good-bye until their house was out of sight.

 We drove out of Colorado and entered Wyoming with the welcome of a huge buffalo on a hillside. We passed a lot of animal farms and passed horses and cows. Then, we passed a herd of very odd animals … CAMELS! We drove on and saw herds of buffalo grazing. Then, just as soon as we had entered Wyoming we were out and had entered Nebraska. Mom got a warning from a policeman for speeding 4.9 mph over the speed limit! We stopped for a tortilla wrap lunch by a railroad track. We stepped out into the hot dry air and immediately noticed the huge number of grasshoppers hopping about. We looked at the outside of the RV and found it covered with dead flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, and butterflies. So our cleaning job in Greeley didn’t last very long. We joked that we were well decorated, while Abby mourned over the loss of three really pretty butterflies that were nicely plastered to our windshield. As we were packing up to leave, a train with 102 cars (Daddy counted) passed by.

We drove on until passing a strange group of statues and decided to check it out. We hopped out and viewed the Stonehenge of America, Carhenge. This was an amusing array of cars sticking every which way out of the ground and statues made out of parts of cars. Nearby other art pieces made of cars were displayed, including a dinosaur, salmon, and a set of cars representing the “Fourd Seasons.” It was very hot and dusty. So we were relieved to jump back into our nice, cool, air conditioned RV. We drove and drove and eventually we past the border into South Dakota. After even more driving, we finally reached our main destination for the day, Badlands National Park, South Dakota.

We checked out Ben Riefel Visitor Center and watched a video on the unique landscape that surrounded us. We left and drove to the Castle Trail trailhead with a great view for dinner. We had leftover spaghetti, Italian bread, and salad. Yummy! Then we decided to take the Saddle Trail to burn off our dinner calories and then come back for dessert. We then ascended the steep, slippery, and strenuous trail, but our hard walking paid off because this trail became the favorite for the Taylor clan so far this trip! There were amazing views in every direction as we were hiking as the sun set. We reached the summit, which turned out to be like a whole new plateau! It was kind of funny, because as we reached the point that was the supposed destination, Mom told the people up front to be careful, as she thought we were on a cliff or steep mountain side. But as it turned out, we had just climbed the stairs to literally the second floor! We were so in awe by the views we were energized to go up another mini mountain to reach a high point.  Alas, all things beautiful must come to an end, so we had a difficult journey back down to our RV.

 We went to a beautiful outlook with the mysterious rocks and the setting sun off in the distance. We then decided that this perfect place was a sacred enough place to eat our Moose Tracks ice cream. We enjoyed this thoroughly. Then, we headed out to our campsite in Wall, South Dakota. This was a very interesting drive, for us kids were trying to get ready for bed while the stressed parents tried to figure if the map was right side up or not, but despite a couple of U-turns and messes of toothpaste, Jesus got us to our campsite safe and sound. We all fell right to sleep after another beautiful yet exhausting day.