Day 6 - Spearfish, SD

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We woke up in Badlands at 4am to catch the sunrise at 5:06am. It was a high of 96 there today so we wanted to get going while it was still cool. With our early start we finished meandering through the park by 10am and made it to our destination in Spearfish, SD by noon. It was only in the high 70s when we left the park. Mission successful.



It's been exciting to hear and see lots of new birds. (I know, I can't believe I just wrote that sentence either, Mom. You're welcome.) Our favorite so far has been the Western Meadowlark which you can hear in the video below. They have a beautiful song and you hear them often in Badlands.  




These are Cliff Swallow nests. They were very active flying in and out to feed their young. One might even go so far as describing Badlands as a cacophony of aviary delights. (I think my Uncle Jim would have agreed.)



We traded our cozy cabin for a cozy cottage where we enjoyed the warm breezy afternoon from the porch. We caught up on laundry, organizing, and much needed rest. I was pretty proud of my ingenious clothes line solution.

The accents we hear out here are quite strange. I keep wondering what country the person we're speaking to is from only to realize it's this one. Tomorrow we head to Billings, MT for one night before we make our way to Yellowstone.

States traveled

  • South Dakota

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Halfway

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Day 1 - Syracuse, NY

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  We left Somerville this morning and are ending our day today in Syracuse, NY. We were on the road for about 6 hours and made tacos for dinner - delicious, tacos never disappoint. The audio highlight of the day was listening to the latest This American Life episode, Must Be Rats on the Brain  - it's us against them. And the visual highlight of the day was crossing the Hudson River - an impressively big river. Our destination tomorrow is Cleveland, OH which will be a similar amount of time on the road, but we don't have to worry about cleaning and packing up so it will be a piece of cake. States traveled Massachusetts New York
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Day 3 - Chicago, IL

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