Where I'm Living

So, the place I am staying at is named after Lewis and Clark, apparently because they passed this way while exploring North America.  It's a pretty nice place for a little trailer park resort, with some nice trees and badlands hills.  Below I put together a few pictures I took; basically I walked up on top of a hill behind our little trailer and this is what I saw.  It's a lot more impressive in person, but, you know how it goes.  For a larger picture of this, click here: http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/6690/landscapecomposite.jpg

Besides those neat little hilly areas, on the other side of the park there is a huge lake.  I walked down to the beach and took a few pictures; the first isn't all that impressive but the second shows a line of trees in the water.  Apparently the water has been really low for quite a few years and as such a bunch of trees started growing on the beach.  Well, the water has started to rise again and so the trees are getting covered.  :o

Here is one of the more surprising things I found was while I was walking around on some hills.  The grass and brush was pretty scrubby in this particular place, but I looked down at one point and what do I see?  A cactus!  It was wierd seeing a cactus in the middle of a bunch of grass so I had to take a picture.

Me and my dad went and explored today as well; I didn't get pictures of some of the cooler stuff (there was one road we went down that wound right between two huge badlands hills) but here are some images I did get to take:

This oil pump was particularily impressive, mostly because I've never seen one before in real life before.  My dad said that sometimes the pump went down miles and miles; pretty cool for such a simple-looking machine.

Another small thing that really impressed me was this huge chunk of petrified wood.  I thought it was just a normal piece of wood at first, but when I got close I realized it had crystals and was pretty rock-hard.  I guess this kind of stuff is common in this area.  Who knew?

Here is some sandstone.  It is a lot more brittle then it looks; more hills are behind it.

And finally, when I saw this gas station I just couldn't pass up taking a picture.  :)

Whelp, that's all for now!  I'm going to be doing more stuff with my dad tomorrow; I don't know if I'll have more pictures to share but maybe I will!  So far this place is really neat; the only downside is the fact that I don't get cellphone coverage, so texting and phone calls are pretty much impossible.  If any of you guys want to contact me, please come on skype or else e-mail me!  I'm going to try to be on MSN more often as well.  The only contact I'll have with you all is online, so please say hello and keep me company every once in a while!  I appreciate it.  :)