Sunday, July 27, 2014

July 27 Badlands – rockets, notch trail star stuff


We moved to the Badlands Campground the next night – our 3rd in the Badlands area – first night near Wall, SD, 2nd night at the private campground in Interior, SD.

We had reservations for the Badlands National Park Campground for 2 nights.

The main differences between the private campground and the campground inside the park were the lack of a swimming pool and walking access to the Ranger activities.

BADLANDS ASTRONOMY WEEKEND

So sometimes you hit the lottery and sometimes you don’t. In this case, we hit the lottery. Not only were the Badlands awesome and strange shapes – like giant mounds of mud that had been left out to dry (this is actually what they are), but it turned out to be Astronomy Weekend!

That’s right! Astronomy Weekend!  And it started off on Saturday morning with MODEL ROCKETS! A short drive into Interior, SD and we found 2 rangers in a town garage supervising the building and launching of model rockets in the nearby Interior School field.

We selected two awesome rockets and set about building them with the help of the two rangers.  

Afterwards, the rockets were launched from the field. 4 launches – 4 successes – perhaps it’s not rocket science after all.

rocket launch 1: http://youtu.be/m8tBfSDiCQc
rocket launch 2: http://youtu.be/33Q-KdKCibM
rocket launch 3: http://youtu.be/0xS_YXc6_iY
rocket launch 4: http://youtu.be/gnoOezwW65c

We then went for a walk in the Badlands on Notch Trail, which requires a ladder ascent and ends at a pretty cool spot that is essentially a giant cliff.


The evening sky was magnificent.
















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