Junior Ranger Report Team

Sometimes you wonder what is going through your kids heads. As part of this journey we have asked Josh and Scott to journal their perspectives and experiences. Here is a collection from the first month.

JOSH (11)

First, we went on a 4 hr drive to Chicago and stayed at Rod and Dianes’ house and went to SuperDawg for dinner. Then we went to Bill and Jackies’ house and rode the old fireboat that their son had bought and me and Scott opened a bar and served wine and champagne. Then we drove to Badlands NP and became junior rangers. We also went hiking and climbing, and the campsite was great too. After our two day stay at the Badlands National Park we set off to Custer State Park and me and Scott and other kids built a massive fort out of logs and stone and we had a war and it was lots of fun.

The next morning we went to see the Crazy Horse Indian hero memorial, that only one family was building. It is a huge memorial, much bigger than the Mount Rushmore faces. We went on a bus tour and the guide was funny. After that we went to Mount Rushmore, saw the presidents faces, did the junior ranger papers and did a ranger led talk about how Mount Rushmore was built, which was interesting. Afterwards we drove to Devils Tower. We went on a walk around the tower and climbed the base of the tower. We also saw people climbing the tower up to the top.   After we were done with Devils Tower we drove to the local Walmart store to stock up on food.

We spent a night in a campsite in the mountains and saw a big Moose, then we drove off to Yellowstone. About two minutes after we drove off we came across a herd of cows blocking the road. It was awesome. After the road block cleared we continued our drive to Yellowstone. When we arrived the first thing we saw was heavy machinery cutting down trees and building new roads – in a protected wildlife area!

When we arrived at the campsite we went to a geyser field and saw two Elk and hot springs. The next day we saw about 300 Buffalo (in herds), 10 Elk, 3 Marmots, one Black Bear and a Partridge in a pear tree. We also saw the Norris geyser basin and some fumeroles. The next day we got woken up at FOUR FOURTY FIVE AM!!!!! by our parents to go see Old Faithful geyser to beat the crouds..zzz..ZZZZZ. We got there and watched Old Faithful erupt FIVE times in a row and explored the rest of the upper geyser basin and the lodge. And that’s the end of our Yellowstone adventure.

SCOTT (7)

The first place we stayed at was Grumpy Cat’s house. At Grumpy Cats house the cat didn’t let mum down the stairs. The next day we went to the Badlands. At the Badlands we went to a prairie and I got so tired that I almost fell over. I liked the climbing, and I liked the Prairie Dogs, and a bunch of other stuff like the hills.

One morning Josh forgot to put the toilet seat down and his towel fell into the toilet! On the road we saw a ton of cows and one of them pee’d. We also went down a mountain side and the brakes almost exploded!

We went to see some geysers and one of them erupted and went “Kaboom!!!”. After we arrived at Yellowstone, we went to a geyser field. We went to see more geysers and Josh saw a bear from the side of the road. We saw Bison, and more Bison and more Bison and more Bison and, well, you get what I mean. We got up at 4:45AM (!) to beat the crowds at Old Faithful.