Lydia

Lydia6, originally uploaded by am....

Ella

Ella2, originally uploaded by am....

i'm still going through all of my vacation photos and i processed some for my friend beth of her girls, ella and lydia. we stayed with them the night before we returned to chicago. i thought i would post a couple of snaps i took here.. they are soooo cute i can't stand it.

badlands

Yesterday Clayton and I started an 18 day trip west from Chicago. I'm writing from a small hotel in Wall, South Dakota. Our attempt to stay in Interior, the community inside the Badlands National Park failed when we realized the community had a population around 60 and all motel offices are closed around 10pm. We tried 3 motels and found 3 closed offices. We were too late to camp so we had to drive back out of the park and into Wall. Driving in the Badlands at night is beautiful and terrifying all at once. We saw deer and some animal we still can't identify :) The landscape has been described as a moonscape. I've never seen anything like it. Today we're going back to the moon but in daylight...First, we'll hit up the famous Wall Drug Store!!

I'm posting some googled images of the Badlands, since I don't have any of my own yet.