Wild rose

Cactus

Cowboy's Delight and Spiderwort

White Larkspur

Wallflower

This little bird suddenly appeared out of nowhere and landed on the trail ahead of us. It would flap around making a big commotion as if injured. As soon as we would get close, it would fly off and land another 20 or so feet ahead of us and do the same thing. This continued for a while until...

... it suddenly flew to a nearby post to yell at us. Then it left. My best guess is that it was a ground-dwelling bird and had made its nest too close to the trail. It believed it was therefore luring us away with the ol' broken wing (hence easy prey) trick.

The clouds continued to slowly build in the distance.

Another sod table

Back through the canyon

A dry...

... and sandy existence.

Almost there!

A Red-winged Blackbird calls out its metallic cry.

We rested in camp for a while, then set out again, intending to do a few more overlooks and short hikes. We started with the Fossil Trail. This was a looping boardwalk, along which were small enclosed cases containing casts of some of the bones they found in this fossil-rich area.

There were lots of informative signs of what this area used to look like.

The boardwalk

Merycoidon was about the size of a sheep. It had fangs on both its upper and lower jaws, but these were meant more for defense since they mostly fed on plants.

Hyracodon was a small, speedy rhinoceros. It was not the ancestor of modern rhinos, however, which evolved from a larger species.

Mesohippus was about as large as a medium-sized dog. It was an ancestor of today's horses.

But it's just a little bunny

We made a very quick stop at the White River Valley Overlook.

At Bigfoot Pass Overlook, we walked along the boardwalk to get a view of some sad history. On December 24, 1890, a bitter wind swept through the area. Minneconjou Chief Big Foot waited while his people made a pass down this giant wall. He was very ill and close to death. After hours of hard work, the group of 350 men, women and children could continue their flight from the US Army. Five days later, he and nearly 200 of his people would die in the massacre at Wounded Knee, 65 miles south.

Where Big Foot and his people descended the enormous wall

The beautiful sweeping grasslands of the upper plateau

Finally was Panorama Point with its lovely rock formations.

We intended for Notch Trail (which was one of the Three Trails) to be as easy as Window trail had been. It was anything but that!