Day 8: Badlands National Park

Part 1:

One of two stops for more than one night. I forgot how hard it is to sleep in while camping. Hello, sun; hello, morning.
I did a bit of reorganizing of the total nightmare that is the car right now. We managed to leave early enough for the Junior Ranger program. It starts at 10:30, but it took us over an hour to get to the Visitors Center from our remote campground. The main road through the park winds through some ridiculous views - we never stopped, but I did a fair amount of gawking and driving - I was in no hurry to get through this road. There were sheep on the side of one of the cliffs!
The Junior Ranger program was ok. He asked for some volunteers to pick stuffed animals out of a bag. Those kinds of things favor the more assertive child. By the time I coached Little up on proper volunteering technique, she just got unlucky in catching his gaze for the last few chances. She was despondent.
He asked us to design our own creature and gave us 10 minutes to do so and/or climb on the rocky hill we were standing by. Unfortunately creature design is an activity in the booklet, so we had already done it. Kiddo went straight after climbing the hill, and she got a bit in over her head. I suppose I enable this by bailing her out and helping her go farther. So we found ourselves on a steep slope. I had stuff in my other hand because I wasn't prepared for the climb. Further up the slope looked dicey - so I foolishly led us sideways to try to get to a flat area. We started to slide - fairly quickly I pulled her up on me as we slid down a few feet. She had a few minor scrapes and was wailing. My leg got bloody in quite a few places, and a few fingers got a little ripped up too.

Back down the hill, the ranger started to give Kiddo her badge and patch early, but she wanted to stay. I think asking her to take a picture of my bloody knee helped her calm down, actually. Because we stayed she got to take the pledge, which was so cute (she was much happier the following picture... it's just tough to get her to pose, especially when the wind is blowing her hair in her face).

Back at the visitors center we got some band-aids and I tried to clean up my leg. Quite a few strangers offered to help - a nice European man got a disinfecting spray from his car for me. The spray bottle was labeled in German.
We watched a movie (Kiddo was bored as shit at all the non-animal parts) then ventured back out for a short hike. She was right back at wanting to climb big rocks! For better or worse, she seems less safety conscious than she used to be.

I could tell the lack of a full night's sleep was wearing on her. We refilled our water bottles at the visitors center so we'd have enough for tonight, then headed back out to camp. She might or might not have fallen asleep if I hadn't stopped a few times. I couldn't help it - might be the last time we drive through the park, and those views are amazing.

Very few tents left at camp, although one large group eventually showed up. Not sure if Friday campers show up late, or if tonight's just going to be less folks. Kiddo and I settled into the tent, had a great "you're exhausted and bored and I'm out of patience" fight, then napped through the lingering heat of the late afternoon. It's now 6ish local time. She's still asleep. I'm not sure if we'll go for the night program at the visitors center (we logged 75 miles and 2 hours in the car already today) or just climb a "mountain" around here again. Hopefully whatever we choose, we do in happiness!
Tomorrow - Scottsbluff Nebraska (actually we're staying at a tiny town west of it on the Wyoming border). Sunday - Boulder!

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Part 2:

The two nights at the Badlands were very different. Last night we decided to skip the night program because some clouds were moving in - rain looked imminent, and an hour drive just to find out it was canceled (and an hour back to camp!) - not worth it.
We decided to walk up a long ridge. We got beat to the path by three riders on horses. Kiddo was pretty amused to watch them go by (they used the ridge as a long way to get to the more cliff-like hill that we climbed the day before). At the top of the hill we braved a phone call (reception in the camp... not so good).When I told my partner I love her and started to hang up, Kiddo made lots of whiny noises. We ended up calling back so Kiddo could say it too.
The storm started to come in while we were on the hill. The first thunder sent us off the hilltop, talking about lightning safety on the way down. She ate some more while I tried to get everything not essential to that night out of the tent in case it got wet. The lightning increased, the wind picked up, and the rain sent us to our tent. We tried reading Frog and Toad, but it's hard to read when the sides of your tent are bulging in from the wind and getting in between your face and the book.

We eventually changed the direction of our sleeping bags (of course the wind somewhat changed direction after that). I reassured kiddo while she reassured her stuffed animals, and eventually we slept, but it wasn't really all that easy. Wondering if the tent really is going to collapse under freakishly high winds is not really a good way to get a good night's sleep. The tent poles would invert and the tent wall would get pushed down on my legs, and/or half the tent space would essentially be gone. But it held! I was glad I put the tent stakes in so thoroughly (even if there were annoying to get out the next morning).
We woke up early again. I wrote some in the morning when I was the only one awake, then we packed up and headed out. Twice on the way out of camp we passed by buffalo that were right next to the road.