In my backyard this week.

 Lots of fun things happening around the quad this summer.  "Friends" showing up around dusk and early in the morning.  We have lots of bluebirds hanging out and this deer comes down behind the apartment in the evenings. With this kind of a backyard you can expect the unexpected.  Last nights sunset was one of the best of the season.  When your living room glows with orange light, you grab the camera because it is bound to be a tremendous sunset.  Today the wind has picked up and storms have been all around but no rain here at the visitors center area.  Enjoy the photos.
You can catch photos from the park which include following the preparation from start to finish of fossils in the paleo lab on the park's Flickr page.  Click on the following links to check it out Badlands Park homepage  or Badlands Flickr page

Wow, the season is coming to a close already, where has the time gone!  One of the common threads you find with rangers is that they want to give to people, time, energy, information, service...blood.  Today was the park's blood drive and, yes, for the first time in my life I gave blood.  Not a bad experience but made much better by those who were there as support.  Thanks to those whose jokes made those minutes pass quickly, to the staff at the drive and to the others who came out to give.  You all rock!

July 13 The South Unit

View from Sheep Mountain

From Red Shirt overlook.  Miles and miles making you wonder about the pioneers and those who crossed here-
Were they nuts?  

 The South unit of the park is spectacular as well as the north.  Today I was in the company of a wonderful young woman, Natalie, who is our Junior Ranger Ambassador for the park this year.  She accompanied me on a trip to the South Unit which is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We traveled through our wilderness area, spotting bison and lots of prairie dogs.  We stopped up on top of Sheep Mountain the highest point in the park and took in the view.  Then off down along the bottom of the unit, collected a few samples of chalcedony ( a quartz). 

No fear! Natalie is fantastic at soaking in new things and her
enthusiasm is contagious.

Our final vista was at Red Shirt Overlook.  Amazing miles and miles of the terrain that earned the area the name of Badlands.

Wish my camera could do justice to the colors of the sky.  This was the sunset this evening.  Our reward
for a long day of professional development.  

   We returned home via Rapid City where we stopped for a very late lunch and a quick stop to get gas and then back to the home base.  OHHHH, one last stop for icecream at the local gas station.  We were rewarded with a full sun in the sunset.  A great day!  Thanks Natalie for joining me and experiencing your park and for your eagerness to learn about and share the park with others.  It is so wonderful to work with talented people that have a passion.

July 7 A Day of Adventures

Sunsets in the Badlands are amazing. I continue to marvel at the sky and colors as the clouds explode in oranges, pinks, purples and reds.  It is never the same and tonight the sky every where was lit up with color. Every cloud in the sky was painted in splendor.  WOW!

Three different nights but all
beautiful.

Home sweet home.  

No, it is not done with the red button.
Lots of procedures in an actual fire.

The blast door was painted, note the guarantee
that your next would be free. 

The capsule is suspended on shocks 30 feet underground,
amazing.

Parts of Dances With Wolves was filmed in the area.  

Our guide actually worked on the missiles when he was
in the service. He had wonderful
stories to tell and details about the site.

Today was my day off. I traveled out and about doing the "visitor" thing.  I attended a tour of the Minute Man missile control station, went to the 1880's town, the petrified gardens, the pioneer sod house and the National Grasslands visitors center.  Then Ranger Larry and I barbecued some corn on the cob and ribs in the cool of the evening out on the "quad".  The temperature stayed under 80 today, a pleasant change from the over 100's we have been having.  We had a shower or two but all in all the breeze was gentle and I actually had to change out of shorts and into my jeans and a ligth jacket by sundown.  Busy day, but terrific!

This begins my third season at Badlands National Park and it has been a very busy start.  Several familiar faces,some new faces and everyone is excited about a new season.  I had a very good trip out, no major traffic and smooth going all the way.

"Ranger Cindy, where you been?"  Actually this little guy is probably from this years little ones.  He was about half the size of the adults.

Thursday night the skies opened up in true prairie fashion with a spectacular lightning and thunderstorm.  All the rangers ooohed and aaahed as flash after flash lite up the sky, some bolts were cloud to ground and others unraveled themselves across the sky for miles and miles. 

"Who's back?"

. 

Did not get pictures of the 15 or so bighorn sheep that were walking on the side of the formation as I drove through the park or the herd of pronghorn with their 10 or so new additions but there is lots of season to go! So you can tell it is already a great start to the season.  I am glad to be back and working alongside those who love what they do and sharing their enthusiasm with those who come through as visitors

First day of the trip out to the park.  Traffic was light and the weather was very nice.  A few thunderstorms near Dayton but they cooled things off.  Teased my daughter with a phone photo of Skyline chili.  She is a fan and where else would you eat in Ohio!  It was delicious, spaghetti with chili and cheese what more could you ask for? About 12 hours on the road with stops and such.  This is the longest day, tomorrow will be shorter and then just a hop and a skip to the park on Tuesday.  My friend Mary will be serving as a TRT again if you want to follow her link.  She will start a bit later since right now she is in the Galapagos! Adventure at every corner! 

All packed up and ready to head out to the Badlands for summer of 2012! YAHOO!
More teachers at my school have been asking about the TRT program this year.  They are really excited and curious about spending that much time away from home and the adventures of driving out.  So here we go again, get ready I have a feeling this is going to be a super summer, as usual.
I couldn't begin the summer without a huge Thank You to my school district they have been great about working with the park service and making things happen on this end.  My principal is fantastic as is all the staff at my school. Shout out DECC Newport News-you rock!  The children were amazed this year during our career fair.  I broke out the fossil kit and my slide show, they just couldn't believe they got to touch things and that I had a life outside of the school building.  Very cool!  Keep up with me over the summer.  Coming soon a post about Badlands adventure in Washington DC this past year.  Hurray for National Fossil Day!

This really doesn't do this storm sky justice but the shadows are so defined.  The light is just shining so brightly off the formations.  When the soil in the formations gets wet it really shows off the colors and the banding is very pronounced.

All in a days work

This is the view from my "reception room" at night on a good clear night.  No smoke here, that is the Milky Way as seen without telescopes on a really nice night.  There is so little light pollution here that the stars are absolutely breathtaking.  It looks like you could reach right out and touch them.  Not quite sure how the photographer captured the lighting on the formations but it was a long exposure. 

My office for morning routines.  This is where I hold part of my geology talk for visitors at 8:30 in the mornings.  The group usually gets larger as we move along.  This is the beginning of my talk by the end we usually have 20 or 30 more join us.  People love learning about their National Parks.  So we talk, joke around a bit, play and learn in a very relaxed environment.  I take them on a journey through time helping them understand how the formations were formed, the past and the future of the park.  Each talk is always a little bit different because the visitors are so diverse.  I meet people from New Zealand, France, Sweden, Australia and sometimes from some strange place called Virginia.  It is fun to hear about their trips and share in their memories. 

Today we are having some severe weather.  Even that takes on a new look on the prairie.  The sky is black over the upper prairie and the sun is shining on the formations.  Winds have been gusting up to 70 mph!

Life in the Badlands

Today's adventure.  As you wander around the national parks you seem to have information about the park at a variety of locations, that is because rangers put out the information in various forms.  Today I spent most of my day putting in fresh posters and information all over the park.  What great fun.  Now granted when a keyhole is out in the weather sometimes it doesn't like to cooperate with you, but all in all no major issues and lots of fun talking to people around the park and seeing all the stops along the way.  People really do enjoy the park and are amazed at how big and beautiful it is here.

At one stop down in the Conata picnic area as I was putting up the informational posters I had to tap the pins in with a hammer.  Two cliff swallows were letting me know they were not happy with me being there, in fact we almost came to blows a couple of times.  Something was definitely up! So I checked out the back of the sign and sure enough they had made a nest and right on the edge are three little babies, looking like they weren't quite sure what all the commotion was about including the mini earthquake they were experiencing.  Check them out, they look like a milk commercial. HA! Actually they don't look any too happy with me do they? 

The end of the day

This sunset is brought to you by Badlands National Park.  What a nice way to end the day.  It was hot today.  The temperature was near 104, lets not add the heat index.  However, it was a great day to be in the Badlands.  The summer is moving rapidly and despite the heat visitors to the park are having a wonderful time.  It is a busy time for everyone in the park. The bison seem to have moved down away from the road. To keep cool perhaps? The grass is starting to turn brown in places but the neat thing is the summer flowers are now coming out.  Today we saw Buffalo Burr and the Showy Milkweed is blooming.

Showy Milkweed

Buffalo Burr

Getting caught up

 So I have fallen behind in my blog. Here it is the 15th of July and I haven't given you any idea of what mischief I am up to.  Well, we are keeping very busy!  I have been out and about the park and it is still green.  This week the temperature has finally kicked into summer mode.  The heat index for the next few days is expected to be well over 110.  There has been so much rain that everything is still very green but we will probably see more browning with the heat now.  We are hearing more reports of rattlesnakes, where there is grass there are critters that eat grass.  Where there are critters that eat grass, there are critters that eat critters, pretty simple.  So on my drives and adventures I did manage to get some photos to share.  Sod tables are so very cool.  The little guys with the mushroom shapes are referred to as hoo-doos.

Three of us decided it was time for an adventure so we took off and went about 2 hours from here to a place in Nebraska called Niobrara River.  We camped over night and

and canoed the river the next day for 6 hours.  It was so beautiful This waterfall was right up the path from our campsite. Of course we had to take off shoes and play in the water.  The river has lots of different waterfalls along the banks.  The water table is actually above the river so it "leaks out" and makes all kinds of little waterfalls.  They say we did some Class 1 rapids which didn't seem that big to me, but I will claim it as a victory and say I did it! It was a great time and the weather was perfect.  I am sure we must have been a sight, three rangers just cruising and talking to anyone who would listen to us. 

I went of the moon hike across the prairie last night and it was something.  You don't need a flashlight when you walk across a moonlite prairie.  It is an odd feeling to be out, surreal.  The buttes take on a whole different feel and you realize how amazing how all of this is, like I had not realized that already.  It is very calming and so quiet.  I will try and get some pictures of the moon on for you.  It was fantastic tonight but my camera didn't cooperate too well.  Ranger Larry had his camera out and he never takes a bad picture of anything.  He is a wonderful man and so neat to work with. 

Visitors Make it Interesting

I gave my first Junior Ranger program of the day today.  Very small group but wonderful.  It is so special to see the children connecting with the park, learning and they are so enthusiastic.  A young man on my program today was asking the greatest questions.  What type of chemicals were in the plants of the park that were considered harmful to livestock? Are rattlesnakes slowly losing their buttons due to breeding of snakes that survive by basically making less noise so they are less noticeable? Great questions, now I get to do the research.  Another girl was so excited to be in the park she wants to be a paleontologist when she is older and was thrilled to get to look at some fossils and hear about our fossils in the park.  You never know what type of influence you might have when you share with these young people and what they might accomplish down the road in their lives.  Marvelous!

It was a hot one today, the forecast was for 105 and humidity was up in the 40's.  Right now (5:00) around 95 with a "feels like" 105 and they say by 6:00 we should be at 99.  I think we may have hit that already today.  Sooooo very warm. 

We setup a tipi today and it came together very nicely first try.  We also celebrated another ranger's birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY you know who you are.

All in all a great day in the Badlands.

Blue skies

Last night we went to bed with a spectacular lightening storm starting up and this morning the lightening and thunder was our alarm clock.  It really poured and there is nothing like a lightening storm on the prairie to make lightening look that much brighter and bigger.  This afternoon while working on project work we heard a thumping on the roof like someone was up there just banging away.  Hail! I don't believe I have ever seen hail as big as this was and coming down so hard.  Most pieces were about golf ball size and visitors up on the top portion of the park reported seeing some come down almost baseball sized. (I didn't see any of those but I imagine they could have been.) We a few visitors come in with cracked windshields and just about everyone sustained some kind of damage to hoods and roofs on their cars.  It was fast paced and amazing.  It moved in really rapidly, dropped its load and then moved right on out with heavy rain for a while.  I am sure the streams are now flowing everywhere in the park.  Right now I am watching the clouds swirl around the top of the buttes but the sun is shining on us and the strong portions of the storm are over according to the weather bureau.  Wow!

There are several TRTs in the park this year and it will be fun working with them all to see what kinds of ideas we will be able to generate.  I'm sure there will be a lot of projects in the works in the next few weeks. 
As I was last year, I am again amazed at how beautiful the Badlands are.  Although I feel a bit anxious about starting up my programs this year, I think I will enjoy them more because I am not as overwhelmed by the amount of learning and studying I need to do to simply sound like I might know a little something about the park.  Not to say there is not so much more to learn, but at least I know my basic information.  I went along on another ranger's talks this morning and she was awesome.  Despite the fact she was racing the weather at her 8:30 geology talk her talk was very informative and the visitors enjoyed it while standing in the cold wind watching the lightening very carefully in the distance. See it is not all glory. 

So as that wonderful blue sky starts to appear and the bird out front sings I wish everyone could be with me to experience the magnitude of the Badlands. 

I am getting settled in.

So I have arrived and am getting settled into my apartment.  Today I went to Rapid City for supplies and just to check out how the roads were into town, those kinds of things.  Did little things to get ready to report tomorrow morning when I am officially on schedule.  The weather cleared up really nicely today, had that prairie breeze.  The temperature is actually pretty cool compared to what we were having in Virginia so I stopped and picked up a little jacket.  (Yes, I left my personal jacket at home.)  So sleeping under the beautiful quilt my wonderful daughter made for me last year that is based on the Badlands and just waking up to the birds.  It is so quiet, I had forgotten how quiet and peaceful.  I am amazed at how green it is! The grass is lush and everywhere.  The sky so blue it looks fake.  Once I get time adjusted I will stay up and check out the stars, right now my body says it is two hours later and there is no way. 

I am looking forward to following my dear friend Mary's Blog this year.  Mary is the one who got me involved with the TRT program by giving me the information. This year Mary will be doing the TRT thing at Shenandoah National Park.  If you are interested in checking out her site as well I will link it to mine.  I know she will have some awesome things to share. 

For Ranger Mary check out   http://teacherrangermary.blogspot.com/

Congratulations Mary!

Back at "Home"

I'm at my "ranger home".  It was so nice to drive into the park with a year of experience under my belt.  I was excited to see everyone from last year and catch up with all the news. It is so green this year.  Last year it was green and this year if at all possible it seems greener.  The temperatures have been cool and the flowers are blooming later than last year.  It will be a beautiful summer. 

The excitement is building!

I heard from a very dear friend this week, who is also a teacher, that she will be joining the TRT force this summer in Shenandoah National Park.  What a wonderful thing to be able to share.  She is so excited and will be an awesome TRT.  I have read and heard from others that it is all about THE HAT. You know what? Part of that is really true. It is another life all together.

I have taken part in two career fairs this past week and it has been just wonderful to share our park with these eager young faces, first and preschoolers.  They think it is just about the most amazing thing they have ever heard of in the world.  They light up when you talk about how special The Badlands are and how you live right there with the animals.  They all want to know where you sleep, if you get to carry a weapon, do you help the animals and all kinds of very interesting questions.  My class took special pride in the fact it was their teacher wearing the uniform in the school which was fun to witness.

They talk about their experience with distance learning and traveling to The Badlands to meet Ranger Julie and share the animal facts they learned, it really made an impact.  They get it! They really get it! That we need to take care of special places in this country that make it a spectacular place to explore.  When I ask "What does a ranger do?"  the answer is protect and teach, about the park, the animals and the habitat.  Big words for such little guys.  Some students have already told me they are going to visit me this summer at "our park".  The teachers in my building are very interested as well.  I tell them it is one of the most dynamic professional development experiences they will ever have.  I know I am a better teacher for having the experience.  In fact I would really like to be a full time ranger when I grow up!

Anticipation!

I am beginning to start putting things in boxes and planning my trip out to the Badlands.  This summer will definitely be a reward for this year.  I am looking forward to; sunsets,sunrises, good people, lots of adventure.  I am thrilled that my friend Dottie is going to be there and was excited to hear that another teacher will be joining us as well.  Greetings go out to Larry McAffe, who was a Badlands ranger in 2009! Larry does some remarkable photography, he encouraged me two years ago when I was embarking on getting into the TRT program.  Look out Badlands this may be an interesting summer with three teachers in the park. 

I'm going back!

That's right, this summer I will returning to the Badlands to serve with the NPS once again and I could not be more excited.  I have truly missed the people and the park this year.  The beginning of this school year has presented a lot of challenges and I really thought this was not going to be an option for me but things have worked out and the position is mine.  To top it all off, Virginia is having recording breaking snow right now! We have over 12 inches on the ground and it is supposed to keep coming.  Amazing! Keep you posted as I prepare for this summer and finish the rest of the school year. 

Back home again

Well I am back in Virginia and getting unpacked.  Guess I brought some rain with me as well.  We had a very nice drive back and got a chance to stop in at New River Gorge National River.  My husband came out on Thursday and we were able to spend the day together on Friday in the Badlands.  We saw lots of bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs and did some hiking as well.  The temperature was great and it was nice to share a little of what I had been doing on a daily basis with him.  This has been a totally awesome experience.  I will continue to maintain my blogspot for the duration with updates about Ranger Cindy:) and more adventures.  I have a feeling this is just the beginning of more adventures.  Keep safe and I will have some more photostories to share with pictures from the Badlands and our travels.

My time is getting short

I cannot believe my time here at the Badlands is coming to an end.  Days just flew by and there is so much I still want to see and do.  I just now feel like I am finding my way, if that makes sense.  Things are becoming more comfortable and now I am busy with trying to wind things up and get things in order for my leaving.  I am really going to miss the Badlands and the people I have come to know as my extended family. To all of them I have no words to express how wonderful you all have been in your support.  We have laughed and joked about mistakes and you have helped me to grow and find myself as a ranger.  Thank you! You have made this a great experience.
I do have some pictures from last weekend to share from our Heritage Celebration. We had Lakota dancers and music.  It was wonderful. Did I mention that before?
I also am looking forward to this week as the motorcycle rally in Sturgis takes off.  Everyone says it will be an experience to remember and the thunder of the bikes is already being heard in the park.  Overall I have not met anyone that wasn't pleasant thus far.  Some of the attire is interesting and could cause some major road rash if an accident occurred. HA.
I continue to explore the park at different times of the day and it still amazes me.  We had a big storm move through this past week that dropped about an inch in less than an hour. Mind you that may not sound like a whole lot of rain but here it caused the streams to "rage" and when it rains the reds in the buttes come to life.  Clouds also make for the most spectacular sunsets.
Coming back from one of the overlooks the other night I saw those little green beady eyes on the prairie which designate black footed ferrets. COOL. I also saw 4 rattlesnakes on the roadway on my way back to my apartment.  They are neat, really.  Not too concerned about a car coming down the road. 
I am on the lookout for a snake right outside my apartment.  Two of the other rangers saw a 5 foot, yes 5 foot, bull snake right outside my door on their walk over to the visitor center. I got all excited and went right to look, wouldn't you know even though I am sitting on my porch waiting for him, he has not shown his face again.  I would love to get a look at him, if not a good picture.  I am sure he will be out when I least expect him.
Today one of the rangers is acting as a guide to a big PowWow down on the South Unit and that will be very interesting.  It will be a late night but well worth the time and effort.  The more I learn about the history and culture of the Lakota and other local Native Americans, the more intrigued I am. I will get back to you on how our trip goes.