Bad Lands 2015

This post is yet another example of how far behind I am writing on this blog.

Do you remember that earlier this year, we visited South Dakota? Well, we did. As you may remember from our trip back in 2013, my favorite part of South Dakota is the Bad Lands (see Badlands National Park Pictures).

This year, it was my favorite as well, although, it felt like I was the only one of the group who felt this way.

But anyway ... here are some pictures of us (and my sister's family) at Bad Lands National Park...

Some summer photos

Just some interesting photos I have sitting around. No particular theme. No real order to them.

Enjoy.

When the mighty Blackhawks played the evil Minnesota Wild, my nephew thought it would be a good idea to bet me an ice cream cone on the winner of the series. The wager went better for me than for him. I collected when we saw each other in South Dakota.

Random South Dakota Pictures

You may remember that my family met my sister's family in South Dakota this year. I posted Mt Rushmore Pictures 2015, totally intending to post more pictures soon after that post. I never really got around to it, but here are some more random pictures from that trip...

One of the first things we did was visit Jewel Cave National Monument and took a cave tour.

Mt Rushmore Pictures 2015

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember that in the summer of 2013, the Sheppy family visited South Dakota.

See Badlands National Park Pictures, South Dakota Six Pack, Mt Rushmore Pictures,

We did it again this year. This time, instead of meeting my wife's family, we met my sister and her family.

Of course when you go to South Dakota with a bunch of kids ... one of the things you have to do is visit Mount Rushmore. So we did.

Mt Rushmore Pictures

I have mentioned our family trip to South Dakota a few times on this blog. It is hard to believe that was way back in July. Can't believe it is already September. I am not sure where the summer went.

I told you that my favorite part of the trip was the Badlands National Park (see Badlands National Park Pictures). My kids' favorite part was Mt. Rushmore National Monument. My youngest boy, in particular, wanted to go see it every day. His mean parents made him wait. Every once in awhile during our other adventures, we got a view from afar, which appeased him for awhile, but the day we visited the monument was the highlight of the trip for him.

3 Floyds Dreadnaught

When we went to South Dakota last month, we met my wife's sisters and their families about mid-way through the week. They all live in Illinois, and knowing that they had better access to 3 Floyd's Brewing company, I asked them to try to pick up some Zombie Dust. Zombie dust is one of the beers on the Zymurgy's 2013 Best Beers in America list that I am trying to drink my way through.

My brother in law made a heroic effort, but apparently, they don't live quite close enough to the Chicago Land area to get 3 Floyd's beers by them. He even made a road trip to a good craft beer store in attempts to pick some up.

Still More @Untappd Badges 11

Well, yes, I know that very few people care, but I keep sharing the untappd badges I earn on this blog.

I recently reached a milestone. Now I have 100 badges. Pretty exciting. Don't you think?

Despite the fact that the South Dakota beer scene sucks, my trip to South Dakota was pretty good to me badge-wise.

Since Still More @Untappd Badges 10, I have earned the following badges:

Article about Letterboxing

This morning, I got an email from the Contact Me form on this blog.

It was from the author of an article on a website called Part Time Nanny, who thought my readers might enjoy reading about Letter Boxing. As I mentioned just recently, pretty much whenever I get an email asking me to share an article, I do it. I'm pretty easy that way.

The article is:

21 Blogs to Read Before Letterboxing with Your Family

Badlands National Park Pictures

I've mentioned a couple times lately that my family went on a road trip to South Dakota a couple weeks ago. The craft beer scene was absolutely awful (see South Dakota Six Pack ... Kinda Sorta Not Really), but we really did a bunch of fun things as a family.

My favorite part of the trip was visiting Badlands National Park. I could have spent several days exploring the geologic formations. It was really awe-inspiring.

The first "trail" area we came to was my favorite. I guess we started at "Door Trail" (see the Hiking page of the National Park website), but once the boardwalk ended, the boys and I just took off in the wide-open space. We explored the various gullies and canyons. Most National Parks want visitors to stay on official maintained trails. Here, we were encouraged to go wherever we wanted. I honestly could have spent all day just in this place (if I had enough water).

If you are ever in the area, I strongly suggest visiting Badlands National Park. Make sure you bring sturdy hiking shoes / boots and lots of water. Also, you'll want sunglasses.

These pictures don't come close to capturing the awesomeness of the park, but here they are none-the-less.

South Dakota Six Pack ... Kinda Sorta Not Really

My family and I went on vacation last week to South Dakota. Before I left, knowing that when traveling I like to try different local beers, I tweeted my virtual friend @BryanDRoth asking if he had any South Dakota bloggers in mind for his "Six-Pack Project". I was hoping he had someone I could ask for suggestions on South Dakota local craft beer to try.

He answered that he didn't. He did suggest that I could provide research for South Dakota Beers. Not really what I was after, but I figured I would at least be able to share my beer experiences there.

While in South Dakota, we did all kinds of cool things.