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Merry Christmas 2025
Beggs, OK, December 2025 26 National Historic Sites, Monuments, Parks or Forests visited
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Yellowstone YMCA
They are building a YMCA in Yellowstone National Park. This is one of the promotional posters. (If you cannot read everything, click here for the high-res version. You will you will have to go back to the original page.) We were talking to the YMCA employees about pausing our membership while we were gone. They…
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Japanese Friendship Garden
Lawrence, KS, October 2025 When we visited the area in 2024, we know about the Japanese Friendship Garden. We looked up the location and discovered it was right next to the Watkins Museum which we did visit in 2024. The Friendship Garden started with Hiratsuka, Japan donating $5,000 to Lawrence in 1995. The city of…
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Prairie Park Nature Center – boy it sucks to diet?
Lawrence, KS, October 2025 We visited Prairie Park Nature Center in 2024 and saw the plumpest prairie dogs that were absolutely adorable. This year the nature center had the same 2 prairie dogs but they have been put on a diet. We were told they have lost 1 lb. This might not sound like a…
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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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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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Night in the Park: Part 2
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 It was foggy much of the day, but it cleared up in the early evening. We decided to look for nocturnal wildlife again on the wildlife loop. On the drive, we were almost hit by a Common Nighthawk. It was close to where we saw on the last time.…
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Fisherman Flats Road
Custer State Park, SD, July 2025 On the first day, Kate talked to a park ranger at the Custer State Park visitor center for what seemed like hours. (In reality, it was probably five minutes.) She learned that there should be Green Woodpeckers in the snags at the Fisherman Flats. Translating that to English, there…