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This has been our home this week, the Red Trail Campground in Medora, ND:

Not amazing scenery, but not bad either. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is just down the road (where we saw the buffalo), and that’s where all the good sights are. We’ll be visiting there again tomorrow.

Cotton from the cottonwood trees float through the air all day long, and it gets pretty thick on the ground:

Our girls spend hours at the playground. Here they are, sporting their favorite footwear:

And then there’s Vern and Rita, the nightly entertainment. I’ll put it this way: Vern is a liberated musician, free from the shackles of time and pitch. I like him.

Most nights we eat in the RV, but the weather has been pleasant enough to enjoy a couple outdoor dinners:

This place has a trashy charm that really grows on you, and it’s been a great place to spend another work week. We’ve had full hook-ups (that’s electric, water, AND sewer connections for you traditional civilians) so we’ve gotten a bit spoiled.

We’ll be here for another couple nights, and then we head off to Montana!

We are at the Medora Musical in Medora, ND. Let your jealousy sink in.

We took a side trip this evening to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (hardly even a side trip really — it’s just a couple minutes away from our campground.)

So we’re driving along enjoying the scenery and came upon a handful of buffalo. We felt like we struck out on the buffalo thing in South Dakota, so this was a real treat:

We encountered some more buffalo grazing right by the edge of the road. We shut the car off and just listened to them munch for a few minutes.

And then enjoyed another cool sunset:

I didn’t think North Dakota could live up to the beauty of South Dakota, but after tonight I’m reconsidering that position. Well played, North Dakota. Well played.

Sort of a rite of passage tonight: boondocking overnight in a Wal-mart parking lot.

It’s crazy to think that at the end of a gravel road, amid cattle grazing on peaceful rolling prairies, there was a 90 ton blast door ready to retract and allow a nuke-tipped missile to go annihilate the inhabitants of some Russian town.

This missile silo has of course been decommissioned, but I learned today that at the height of the Cold War, there were 1000’s of active sites like this all over the country, mostly out West. Now there are a mere 500 or so.

Unleashing nuclear devastation from such a serene, beautiful setting is pretty ironic.

I’ll definitely be checking out more Cold War stuff whenever I can.

We’re now 2 weeks into our RV trip. The first week was vacation, and this past week was us trying to figure out what “normal” is for us now. Here’s a recap of the week in The Badlands, South Dakota.

For those that don’t know (as was the case with me up until this week), The Badlands are a bunch of mountain-sized mounds of mud:

…that are really fun to climb:

As we drive around, we see animals everywhere, like these goats:

…and prairie dogs:

…Tatanka! Tatanka!:

…several funky-horned deer:

…and dime-a-dozen regular deer:

…and these crazy birds. This one in particular has been outside the RV all week with a very distinctive song (listen here):

We took the obligatory trip to Mt. Rushmore (it was way more interesting than I thought it would be):

…and we saw mountains NOT made of mud:

…and more rolling prairie that just seemed to go on forever:

That last picture was Custer State Park…it’s amazing. I felt like I was trapped in the Windows XP desktop, except it didn’t suck:

We went to the town of Wall and visited the curiously famous Wall Drug:

…and got caught up on some laundry:

There have been some strong winds all week, perfect for some kite flying:

(Sadly, the kite is no longer with us. As I said, strong winds.)

In the last half of the week, we enjoyed some more climbing near our campsite:

…where the sunsets have been gorgeous:

…as are the sunrises. I got up butt-crack of dawn yesterday and did some climbing:

…and then went to work. (What a way to start the work day, eh?)

Speaking of work, it went swimmingly well. I discovered that our car is a nice quiet place for making conference calls. Throughout the week I did most of my work at the kitchen table in the RV, but today the office was outside:

I’m sure there will be weeks where crappy internet makes work difficult, but based on how well this week went, it appears that perhaps I have not committed professional suicide by taking his trip. So, that’s a plus.

We break camp early tomorrow and get back on the road. Our destination? A Wal-mart parking lot somewhere in North Dakota. Seriously…I’ll upload a photo.

The past few days have just been a blur. Before I get too far behind and forget the order of things, I wanted to document what has happened so far.

After some sad goodbyes, we headed out from my parents’ house on Tuesday the 14th:

We drove to St. Louis and stayed in a downtown RV park that had all the charm of a fenced in parking lot:

Of course, we visited the arch:

..and went up in the arch (can you tell which daughter is the worrier?)

We also spent an afternoon at the City Museum. If you ever go to St. Louis and DON’T visit the City Museum, you’ve wasted a trip.

After we left St. Louis, we had to take several detours as we continued West due to the Missouri river flooding many areas:

…and many other areas expecting to flood:

After 4 days and almost 1000 miles of scenery that looked largely indistinguishable from Indiana, we hit the South Dakota prairie, which was very cool. John-Dunbar-Dances-with-Wolves kind of cool:

And then, out of nowhere, the Badlands appeared. This is our spot for the week:

And this is my view from the RV for the week. (Badlands National Park, SD)