The Great Western Journey part 15--what's so bad about it?

 After we toured the Minuteman Facility we drove to nearby Badlands National Park. The plan was to drive through the park (a windshield visit) and the exit would put us on the path toward our evening stop. 

This layout was created with 2 papers from Scrapbook Customs. I tried to buy as many of the park papers as I could because they do not last long in their inventory. One side has a photo view of the park with a traditional entrance sign. The reverse has a wood pattern with an image of the state and the park's name. I also added stickers from a coordinating pack so I could add the park map on the left page and a few additional elements on the right. The image of the park on the left page (next to me and the sign) was so close to the photo page that I wanted to layer them. That is a peekaboo pocket and there are more photos of the landscape underneath.

Jim and I were amazed at the formations and at one point Jim told me to stop the car because he just HAD to get out and touch the rock to see what it was made of. In 104F heat, he still did that. So I stayed in the car and took photos. We came across some higher-elevation spots where we could get some great selfies so I did eventually leave the car.

These 2 pages were separate 1-page layouts from one of my Noreen Smith classes. I used the Leave No Trace paper pack from Creative Memories. I believe the background paper is supposed to be HooDoos from Bryce Canyon (or maybe it's supposed to be the Grand Canyon?) Regardless, it worked well for the Badlands as well. I utilized more stickers from the Scrapbook Customs pack--I really like the way the sign "hangs" from the right page. 

And then we started driving toward Nebraska. The problem was that the road turned into a dirt path and was very rough. Washboard doesn't BEGIN to describe it. And then there were the prairie dogs. They were EVERYWHERE and kept crossing the road in front of us almost daring us to hit them. We'd had it with that road so we stopped briefly, consulted a map, and found a path that would get us back on a regular road even though we wouldn't be in the park. As we headed south toward Nebraska we also had a large elk jump across the road in front of our car. You really have to keep your eyes open out west!

I haven't had too many opportunities to do a page without photos, but the highlight of this page is journaling. I came across the old die cut of the rural road so I used that as the base. I had one remaining prairie dog sticker so I cut the tails from some beaver stickers and added them to the road. The nice part of this page is that I got to use up quite a few scraps of paper and some stickers and embellishments from many older kits. But it all helps tell the story!