The Geography and the Animals of the West

The landscape and animals of the West are simply outstanding! Big granite hills,next to rolling prairie hills, not to far from deserts, glaciers, mountains and the stone spires of the Black Hills, the West has it all. Also, it is surprising how unique the National Parks are. Badlands National Park has a lot so eroded rock formations and almost looks like a mini-desert. After the Badlands, we got to go on a cave tour at Wind Cave National Park.  The park has 95% of all the box work formations in the world! Now that's pretty cool. Also we learned that this cave breathes. Literally. When the air pressure drops outside the cave, the cave "breathes" out to equalize the pressure, and when the air pressure increases outside, the cave "breathes" in. With the diversity of the landscape, the geography of the West is amazing, but the animals are awesome, too.

We saw a swift fox, an antlered white-tailed deer, a pale milk snake roadkill, and a bunny in the same minute! Also, we've seen bison, heard coyotes, owls and elk, and watched turkey vultures circle around Devil's Tower! An amazing trip so far.