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Pelicans, Egrets, and Herons, Oh My!
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 We did not have a lot planned today. We thought we would sit out at the 261st Street dirt road to we could find some new birds, look for the Belted Kingfisher, and mail postcards in Canistosta, SD. The first activity was to go to Canistosta Post…
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Otter Stream Trail
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 In the morning, John has been walking the, roughly, one mile hike from the RV around the Otter Stream trail trying to get pictures of new things. Kate has been staying home for these treks because they are about 1/3rd walking and 2/3rds picture taking. Today was…
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One More Loop Around Maple Campground
Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 John decided to walk the loop around our (Maple) campground on the Otter Stream trail early in the morning. If you consider 10 am early, then he succeeded. Otherwise, he was a bit late. The hope was that it would be cooler, less people around, and more…
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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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Gull Point Drive Day 40
Yellowstone National Park, WY, June 2025 (This is one of the sets of pictures from Yellowstone that we did not have time to post. There is one more, after this one. Unfortunately, it is the one that had almost 2,500 pictures. At least it is down to 1,600 now!) The plan for today was to…
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Southeast Yellowstone Day 41: Part 2
Yellowstone National Park, WY, June 2025 This is the first of the three days of Yellowstone pictures that have not been posted. This was two days before the Sunday that we left the park. In the morning, we got up early to see the wolves. (We posted these pictures and videos here.) Some of us…
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Exploring Lake Vermilion
Lake Vermilion State Recreation Area, SD, August 2025 Lake Vermillion is named after the Vermillion River. Vermillion is an alternate spelling of Vermilion, the reddish-orange color. The river gets its name from the seams of reddish-orange sandstone along the banks. People just lack imagination. At least, it is not the reddish-orange river. Yesterday, we had…
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Can I Burro a Bag of Salad?
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 The Burros are descendants of the ones used to haul visitors up to the top of Black Elk Peak before the tours were discontinued in the 1930s. They are not native to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We had driven by the place the Burros hung out a…
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Badlands National Park
Interior, SD, July 2025 Kate put together a plan to do everything within about 100 miles, except John ruined her plan by pointing out that her route bypassed most of the Badlands National Park. The revised plan skipped the extra grasslands visitor center, and passed through the badlands. This plan involved going to the Minuteman…
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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…