We are in the Badlands of North Dakota! Today on our hike we saw a couple of bleached out bones (likely belonging to a cow) and a tortoise (alive), and during dinner we saw another deer. Very exciting!

Another "waterfront" campsite! And we arrived in time for a quick hike through the meadows. But the big excitement was a raccoon got into another family's site while they were down at the lake! When they returned, the raccoon was going through their garbage, and when the human mom tried to scare the raccoon away, it came after her! Feisty wildlife, here, apparently. We will be sleeping with the windows closed.

Getting to Pike's Peak State Park took us through Marquette, Iowa, which is one of the cutest, quaintest little towns that could ever possibly exist. We arrived at Pike's Peak in plenty of time for a hike to take in the beautiful vistas, and we came upon a deer in the wildlife preserve, which stood about 10 feet away from us for a few minutes. Pure magic.

We were originally supposed to stay at Indiana Dunes State Park, but after starting the first leg of the trip we realized that shorter driving days were going to be necessary! So we spent less time in Brooklyn and rebooked a different route with an additional day, which meant that Indiana Dunes was all full, and we had to settle for Pokagon State Park for the night. But we set up a hammock which seemed to thrill the kids. And we did stop at Indiana Dunes for a qu...

We made it before dark! But barely. Just enough time to get a fire going and eat some campfire dinner before a thunderstorm rolled in.