7/12/2010 Badlands - Day 2

Today Lex and I woke up at 7:00am and went on a hike where we saw a mule deer (see above) and many cool geologic features, including: clastic dikes, sod tables, worm-hole sandstone-mudstone towers, and a lot of great fossils.  The Badlands Park encourages hikers to explore off of the trails; however, they still do not allow you to take samples (obviously). Fun Fact: Several weeks ago an eight year old girl found a saber tooth tiger skull... only five have been found in the park! 

After our hike we came back to camp and picked up mom and dad and then went to another hiking location (they needed time to have their morning coffee). We hiked for a while and then decided to go on a scenic drive that lasted about three hours. The point of the drive was to locate a herd of about 3,500 buffalo that roam the vast prairies. We saw mule deer, prairie dogs, antelope (left), more prairie dogs, and I had a terrifying encounter with a big horn sheep!  It happened when we stopped and hiked out onto a look out point.  Someone thought that they spotted what looked to be buffalo way out in the prairie.  I excitedly started running back to where we had parked the truck in order to get a pair of binoculars when I caught a glimpse of an animal sitting on a ridge off of a bluff.  I stopped and looked closer and realized that it was two animals and my curiosity took over.  I pulled up my Canon, zoomed in close and realized that I just discovered a big horn sheep with her baby!  My hunting instincts kicked in and I began to stalk, just to get a bit closer, and then a little bit closer, and a little closer yet... I soon found myself crawling through knee high prairie grass at the edge of the bluff, only about twenty yards from the two animals below.  I was sitting there, undetected, snapping all kinds of great shots when it suddenly occurred to me that rattlesnakes live in prairie grasses and I started looking around.  As I moved I was detected by the MOMMA and then realized that she could probably out run me and she has two sharp looking kabob sticks on her head (see pictures below)! Since I am really not in favor of getting any body piercings, especially by an animal, I froze, waited for her to relax, and then I ran about as fast as I could.  Lexy and my mom saw me bounding from the prairie grass and said I looked motivated... what ever that means.  Our day ended with many great pictures and a relaxing evening by our pool... but no buffalo!  At 9:00pm we went to a star party at the local amphitheater and then called it a night.