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It’s a Blue Bird, not a Bluebird!
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 We planned to rent paddle boards to putter around the lake today. John had been planning to hike the Otter Stream trail with the tripod to try to get better pictures of some of the subjects from the last hike. Since it was still early, he decided…
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Palisades State Park
Garretson, SD, August 2025 Today was supposed to be a reasonably nice day with sun and no rain. So, we decided to visit Palisades State Park in South Dakota which is about 45 minutes from our current campground. We set the car GPS and off we went. Needless to say, the car GPS took us…
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Hike The Otter Stream Trail, Not This One
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, July 2025 Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area has a figure 8 hiking trail in the western camping area that circles the Maple Campground and passes near Juniper and Oak Campground. The trail is flat smooth and wide. It appears to be a mowed path through the prairie about 4…
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Wind Cave Canyon Hiking Trail
Wind Cave National Monument, SD, July 2025 We needed to test the time to get to Wind Cave National Monument to make sure we would leave in time for our cave tours next week. To do this, we planned a trip down to Wind Cave to go hiking. Based on what Kate read, the Wind…
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Barnes Canyon Trail
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 We needed to get some exercise, so we decided to go hiking. Since all the places that we wanted to hike had rattlesnakes or poison ivy, we decided to hike on Barnes Canyon Trail. Since we could not decide which direction to hike from, Kate picked “B”, and we…
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Jewel Cave National Monument & Canyon Hike
Jewel Cave National Monument, SD, July 2025 There are 3 national monuments within an hour of Custer State Park. The monuments are Jewel Cave National Monument, Wind Cave National Monument and Mount Rushmore National Monument. Jewel Cave has a .25 mile, 3.5 mile, and 5.5 mile hike near it. The .25 miles hike starts and…
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Yellowstone National Park Day 37
Yellowstone National Park, WY, June 2025 This was a very long day. We left at 8 am and did not make it back home until after 8 pm. We immediately grabbed our shower gear and left again. Finally, we were back in the trailer for the night around 9 pm which would 10 pm central…
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Yellowstone National Park Day 31: NSFK
Yellowstone National Park, WY, Jun 2025 Just a warning, this post may be classified as Not Safe For Kids (NSFK) and squeamish people. We are staying in a huge wilderness space, everyone has to eat, and not everyone is a vegetarian. Except for a few of the marmots, John took pictures holding the camera instead…
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Yellowstone National Park Day 30
Yellowstone National Park, WY, June 2025 We found out that the Natural Bridge Trail was open. They close it in the spring because Bridge Creek has spawning trout that attract bears. Sadly, this means that we missed the spawning trout. We used the trail at Bridge Bay Campground. The trail starts as packed dirt, but…
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Yellowstone National Park Day 13: Part 3
Yellowstone National Park, WY, May 2025 (Note: These images are just click to expand because I am trying to catch up.) After the hiking at Barnes Hole Road, we went Harlequin Lake, which is only a mile and a half from the Madison Visitor Center. On the drive to Harlequin Lake, I figure out that…