Badlands-Part two

After a great night's sleep, we got up and headed back into the park for an early morning hike.  

Like 7AM.

 The clouds were still hanging around and the mountain colors were muted in the light.
Here are our two explorers at the "door", or the "window."  Sorry, can't remember which.
The view through the opening is down into an enormous valley of more gorges.
Stunning.

 Then we headed on our longer hike.  The infamous "Notch" hike.  Not far:  under two miles round trip.  The trail winds around a gully.  The noise from the road and parking lot quickly disappear and it is quiet.  We wound along the trail until we came to this:

 I had heard about it, and read about it.  The ladder up to the cliff's edge.
Gulp.  It's not the climbing up, it's the getting back dowwwwwn.
So Kieran headed up first, then Kevin, Keenan, followed closely by me.

 Kieran & Kevin headed off along the cliff edge.  And I do mean edge (like the path winds along and is only about 18 inches wide).  So Keenan (my clumsy little boy) held my hand & we (slowly) made our way back to the ladder.

 Kevin & Keenan headed down the ladder first.  The top was pretty tricky.  Some of the logs are spaced a good ways apart.  Then Kieran scampered down, and then I slowly made my way down.

 To these guys checking out the rocks.

 The moon was still up, and the clouds were clearing.

 Beautiful isn't it?

 Go ahead & click the pictures to enlarge.  Wish they could capture the quiet and the smell of the prarie grasses on the wind.

 Later in the morning the boys took a class with a Ranger.  They completed their Jr. Ranger program by making dream catchers.

 Prarie dogs are all over the place.  Right outside the park someone decided to make some money off the little rodents.  For fifty cents you can buy a bag of unsalted peanuts and walk around the "town" feeding the little critters.  Keenan loved it.  They are pretty funny-barking at each other & sticking their heads in & out of their burrows.

 Love this picture....

 Then after a little rest at the KOA, we headed back into the park to watch the sunset.

 And the boys wanted to show off their new shirts:

 How quickly the colors change....

 We were going to stay for the evening ranger program & look at stars, but these were moving in quickly....

Was a good call to head back & hunker down.  Winds were blowing crazy again (so glad we weren't in a tent!), and we had the longest lightening show I've seen in a long time!