The Badlands and Delta-09

We headed out early to start at Badlands National Park from the west. We were hoping to see some wildlife and were not disappointed, despite the extremely high winds. We worked our way thorough the park, doing all the short hikes and stopping at all the overlooks except the ones visited did two days ago. Afterwards, we drove west to check out the Delta-09 site, part of the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

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Ellanor C. Lawrence Park

We visited Ellanor C. Lawrence Park in Virginia today between lunch and dinner, mostly to walk around a bit to be able to eat more! This small park is between Centreville and Chantilly, a few miles south of Dulles, and owned by Fairfax County. It is a nice place for a walk with trails through a forested area nestled between a highway and smaller road. We planned on doing a loop but it turned into an out and back when we realized the western half of the trail was through partially swampy unmowed grass! We were rewarded for our efforts though as we spotted a species of bird that we’ve never seen before, the Eastern Towhee!

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Local Cherry Blossoms & Finches

It has been nearly a week since the local cherry blossoms have started to bloom. The first few trees still look wonderful with very few petals that have fallen to the ground. The weather has been quite a bit cooler since the first day and trees that started a bit later seem to have quite a mix of flowers and buds. Today, we were treated to a wonderful sight – a few male House Finches were busy eating the flowers!

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