Badlands National Park - Morning until Dusk

Today we focused on seeing the Badlands.  The last two times we have been here, we just drove the scenic loop stopping occasionally at an overlook.  Today we took our time and even drove on a road we had never been on.  We were rewarded with seeing buffalo and a coyote battle of the fittest play out.  

A picture taken by the blogger's husband.

Thankfully, we never saw any rattlesnakes.

A couple of prairie dogs.

Shorty after seeing the bison sign, we spotted this lonely bison.

I know this picture is fuzzy but it is necessary so I can tell the story of the coyote battle of the fittest scene we were witness to at the prairie dog town.  We had stopped to take pictures of prairie dogs.  While we were watching, a coyote came into the picture and caught a prairie dog for lunch.  As he was walking off with the critter in his mouth, three other coyotes came charging at him and the strongest "fittest" of the three took the prairie dog from his mouth and ran off with it.  The first coyote did all the work but gained nothing.   Someone standing there with us watching the scene commented that this is a picture of the  life of a human.  We work hard for our sustenance and the government comes along and takes it from us.   Anyway, it was a scene we had never watched before.

These prairie dogs were lucky to live another day in prairie dog town.

                             

The last view of the sun.

We did see several white tailed deer; however, it was getting so dark that a clear shot was impossible.

This one was standing right by the road but there was a car behind us (their headlights is reflected in our front window)  so I could only get a quick picture.

It was a great day of seeing the different landscapes around each curve of the road.  We saw several wild animals which always excites us.  It was amazing to see how the same landscapes we saw during the day changed so much in the evening.
The sunset over Badlands was truly beautiful.

We did get a new neighbor today.   As he was hooking up his electricity and water he said to us, "Just a word of warning, I have four kids age six and under so you may hear a commotion coming from this camper."  After that we saw four legs and huge paws come from the camper and then another four legs and huge paws came out.  He also had two almost horse-sized dogs traveling with the family.  So this 34 foot motorhome contained two adults, four kids and two mini-horses and we think we feel crowded with just Carol and I and Sandy!  He is from New York so they have traveled many miles thus far.