Day One

So, we drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. And made stops for Meg every 5 seconds, and continued to drive. As we drove though Minnesota and Wisconsin, we saw nothing but green plains with little farms, and a few freaky windmills. We crossed the Mississipi river, which was actually pretty amazing! 

We decided before our arrival in the Badlands we would make a stop at South Dakota's biggest city, Sioux Falls (We believe that it's pronounced "sue" but that has actually not been confirmed).   It was a cute little factory town with a giant waterfall! It was so nice to get out of the car and finally see something beautiful, especially knowing we still had a five hour drive ahead of us. 

After a few more stops for Meg (I swear that girl has a bladder the size of a pea) we finally made it to the badlands!!!! Our 18 hour stretch was over and it was all worth it because it is absolutely stunning here. 

Unfortunately, things were not going to smooth sail for long. We found our campsite and decided we would set up our tent before going for a hike. Let's just lay the situation out for you in one word: WIND. It was so windy, were talking 35mph winds, that we could not set up the tent. It was blowing this way and that way, the poles bent and one actually broke. It didn't help that people were definitely watching us struggle to put this thing up. If Thelma and Louise ever attempted to set up a tent on a windy day I guarantee it would've gone better than our attempt. No one offered us help, so we did the most logical thing...decided it wasn't worth it, and made the decision to sleep in the car. And so on our first night camping, we will be moving all of our belongings to the front seat and snuggling in the back. YES! 

This is an example of what our tent would've looked like if we could've set it up. I mean that campsite are you kidding me? 

Finally, we were able to hike and take some amazing pictures. We did a loop around the whole park in the car and stopped at different overlooks. We are 87% sure we saw a herd of Buffalo! And we are 100% sure we saw some mountain goats! It really is so beaufitul here and the perfect place to start our camping adventures. 

We wrapped the day up with a great dinner of PB&J in the car because it is still too windy to eat outside. The good thing is we have some pretty great entertainment from our fellow campers who seem to be struggling with the wind as well! At least the sunset was too beautiful to make us care about anything else :)