Not A Vacation Update

Welp, vacations are over, so it's back to reality. Here's some pictures from the last month, in reverse order:

I'm obsessed with watching the snail in our new fish tank at school. 

Here's the whole tank--5 fish and 1 snail.

We climbed up Mount Trashmore the other night as part of the Newbo Meet Me at the Market. Quite the view of the city from up there! Plus a much easier climb than South Dakota!

Back to this nightly routine.

I added some more decor to our reading area before school started.

My tomato plant is still holding on! There are a few left to eat.

Painting the letters for the library.

I came home one day and Pacino's water bowl was missing. After a bit of hunting around, I found it inside the closet. Not sure what that was about! No water was spilled, at least.

Speaking of Pacino...isn't he cute?

This table has become quite the project. I used the back side of a hammer to scrape that paint off, then scrape off the red stripe. I've covered it with about 85 layers of paint, which isn't helping. Next strategy is spackle. 

Sweet corn festival food!

BINGO at the sweet corn festival. 

My produce!

Our book club met at Black Sheep Social Club. I ordered this fancy little lavender/rose drink.

Stayed up late watching a lot of Olympics, though I think I like the winter Olympics better.

There's some cool new art in downtown CR!

That snowcone is bigger than my face. Just the way I like it.

Got a virtual reality headset for free when I bought my new phone. It's not nerdy at all.

Celebrated my mama's 50th birthday!

Lots of good food & drinks!

Stumbled into an anti-Trump rally when he was in CR.

Spent one of the last days of summer at the water park.

Painted this new Fly Guy to go in our reading corner.

I love that new coffee mug!

We did the NewBo walk when the heat index was 116! No big deal!

After the Dolly Parton concert!

Dolly was rockin' it! She sure dances around for an old lady. 

South Dakota

At the Badlands campground they have a park ranger presentation every night, and it's someone different each night. We went twice, and the second ranger did an awesome job. He even gave us marshmallows and we sang a campfire song! There was also a stargazing presentation, and that guy was amazing, but we only saw that on Thursday since Saturday was very cloudy.

We saw a few deer on our evening drive on Saturday.

We got a really good glimpse of this long horned sheep on Saturday evening.

We decided to take the gravel road, and it easily had the best view. Gravel roads usually do.

I could have sat here all day, but other people kept bothering me. My feet were at the edge of the cliff!

Saw some cactus. Pretty sure I heard a rattlesnake a little ways past this, but I didn't stick around to find out what the sound was.

The big heads!

We don't have tunnels like this in Iowa.

This is on the hike we did in Custer Park. 

Also in Custer Park.

This was at the top of Harney Peak--the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains.

These are both from the top of the peak.

This is at the top of the mountain that we had to climb FIRST to get to Harney Peak. If you zoom in and look very, very closely you can see the lookout tower clear across on the other mountain. We went up one, across aways, down, then back up. It was quite the climb.

This is at Sylvan Lake. The hike to Harney Peak starts out behind this lake. Next time I think I'll just enjoy some kayaking!

My view for morning reading.

Our tent & view of the campsite and badlands. It was a great campground!

We stopped at the Corn Palace. This  years theme was "Rock of Ages." It's quite interesting!

We also stopped in Minnesota and found the largest Green Giant in the world.