Handmade Pottery + Ceramic Jewelry

Yep, this reads 112° F in the Badlands, SD! Of course, we managed to time our vacation during South Dakota’s heat wave where it was close to 100 in the Black Hills where we did camp.
WTF – Rattlesnakes??? Needless to say, between the heat and the rattlesnake warnings, we decided not to camp at the Badlands! Could you blame us?
Here I am in Badlands National Park – I can’t believe I’m not melting – though it was way too hot for our dog to walk around.
We’re baaaaaaackk! Whew, we just got back yesterday from our whirlwind camping trip through South Dakota, Wyoming and Northern Colorado. Our experience was one of highs and lows and in the end it was all good. We experienced extremes in temperature, moods and encounters with wild life!

In South Dakota, it was HOT as hell, but well worth the trip. We ended up setting up camp the first night at Wind Cave National Park where we were but a handful of human souls. As city slickers, we were in awe of the wild life walking through our camp in the evening.

Our dog, Zuzu, came along with us and I don’t think that she’s ever seen a deer before. It was like doggie TV for her – she was mezmerized, as were we.

The Demon Beaver
Then we met the Demon Beaver after leaving South Dakota for Devil’s Tower. We camped at Cook Lake in the Black Hill portion of Wyoming on Thursday evening where we were only 1 of 2 camps set up at the campground. Sounds like paradise, doesn’t it?? It was until about 2 in the morning…when my husband reached over to see if I was in the tent or if that was me rattling around outside the tent. Sure enough I was inside, as was our dog and daughter. What could it be?? My heart rate started racing when I imagined bears and mountain lions outside our tent circling ever closer before they ripped open the tent to devour us. No one would know since they probably already ate the other campers at the lake.

My husband put on a brave face, took the lantern and went outside to confront the bear. That evening, we had returned our food stuffs to the Pathfinder, but overlooked the cooler which was still sitting out on the picnic table. What did he find? Not a bear or lion, but a beaver! The beaver, who despite being cute, witty and adorable in cartoons, was about as big as our 60 pound dog and quite ferocious upon being caught stealing from our cooler.

He (the beaver) took off into the night and my husband returned the cooler to the car and came back into the tent. Meanwhile I had to go pee, but I wasn’t about to tangle with a 60 pound beaver so I decided I could will the sensation away. I was just about to drift off to sleep when we heard a commotion at the trash cans – banging and gutteral growling that lasted for about 15 minutes and then silence. I was once more so scared with the vision of a mountain lion full of blood lust thrashing the beaver around just outside our tent. And, furthermore, I was beginning to think that maybe city people should never ever camp under any circumstances unless it was at a highly developed campground city.

The Demon Beaver’s Dam
Needless to say, we survived the evening and sometime during the night I managed to drift into a fitful sleep full of dreams of beavers, lions and bears. In the light of day, we realized that the beaver got our chocolate bar for the S’mores that we had stashed in the cooler because of the heat. It dawned on me that the Beaver was probably on a chocolate, sugar, caffeine high after eating the contraband and we might very well be responsible for killing the Beaver with chocolate! Or maybe, he’s just suffering an incredible chocolate hangover…. We didn’t hang around long enough to verify his fate.

Devil’s Tower, WY

We took off early in the morning because of impending rain and did a drive by of Devil’s Tower before heading across the state of Wyoming towards the Grand Tetons. Little did we know that rain covered the state, and by the time we reached Jackson, WY, we had decided to get a hotel room for the night instead of camping. We weren’t alone and there was not a room to be had within 150 miles of Jackson. We were all exhausted, pissed off and I was ready to divorce my husband for insisting that we drive 16 hours on a wild goose chase.

We eventually found a hotel room that would take us and our dog in Rawlins, WY. The proprietor of the Econo-Lodge gouged charged us $129.00 for the privelege of staying with our dog. My husband was about ready to keep driving – but by 12:30AM, I was willing to pay $500.00 to have a dry place to bed down for the evening. We woke up refreshed and found Penny’s Diner in Rawlins the next morning which was terrific. Nothing like a big pancake breakfast with hashbrowns, bacon, eggs and coffee to make it sound like a good idea to camp an extra night before heading home.

Campfire at Center Lake in Custer National Forest, SD

We managed to pitch our tent at Chamber’s Lake in Roosevelt National Forest in Northern Colorado before it started raining again. It cleared up in the evening so that we could make dinner and enjoy a camp fire before hitting the sack. We made it back home to Denver yesterday afternoon and really enjoyed sleeping in our own beds, long luxurious showers and a dinner filled with vegetables – which were sorely lacking the past week.

Overall a good vacation! Meanwhile, I’ve been itching to get back into my studio this week….