Dhila Backstrom Photo Blog

Man, I've been absent from this blog for a very long time. The summer has been filled with manic cooking and I have been purposely keeping my head low on photo shoots. I really just want to enjoy myself this Summer, spend more quality time with the boys, exploring some local eats and produce and taking those produce and whip something up in my own kitchen. I take pictures of almost all of my cooking and posting them via Instagram. You can follow me there, I go by DhilaB and that's my Twitter name too.

Anyway, I finally got around to start the first round of photos of our last vacation with Jacob, Treyton's cousin. Jacob has been waiting for this for the whole year. We started taking each of my sister's many kids each year to go on vacation with us. We took Ivory to Jogja and Java, Indonesia; Zach to Grand Marais and now it's Jacob's turn and he got to pick the destination of the three choices we gave him. He chose Badlands. We've been to Badlands, many times and each year we go I'm reminded how beautiful this place is.

If you plan to visit Badlands, I highly recommend you go a couple of hours before Sunset. We went in the morning, where tourists were flocking, no wild animals at seen, it was too damn hot and we still toured around.

Then we went back to the hotel to cool off and took a nap, went back out to the park after dinner. Boy, WAS I GLAD! The golden sun gently kissed the landscape. The hues of the hills show its true colors and stripes of red, yellow and rust, the animals came out to bask after hiding all day from the scorching sun. The wind gently blowing and made the grass dance. You hear gentle echoes as the wind blows. There was so much beauty surrounds me I was completely overwhelmed. It was so overwhelming, I CRIED, and that's the truth. It was something spiritual I have never experienced before.

These pictures don't do justice, but enough to remind me the feeling the felt.