Badlands

Driving through South Dakota was a most impressive site. The speed limit is 75 so you can go pretty fast but that is because there isn’t much except huge fields and straight roads. There are signs for Wall Drug Store starting in Iowa and there is a sign at least every couple miles. “Free Ice Water” and “Coffee – 5 cents” are just a couple of the things advertised… I can’t forget the T-rex or the six-foot tall jackrabbit. South Dakotah has become one of Jacob and my own favorite states to drive through… very beautiful. Once we got to the Badlands National Park and saw the badlands we were amazed. It was a strange and awesome landscape. We entered the park and drove the park road that winds through the badlands. Then we took a dirt road to the Sage Creek Campground which was advertised as a primitive camping area where there is no water and bison are likely to roam through the campsite. After driving about 12 miles down the dirt road we hadn’t seen a single bison anywhere and Jacob said “I’m thinking we won’t see any bison.” Then we turned a corner and I was surprised to see a bison standing on the side of the road. We took some pictures thinking that might be the only one we see. Then we went on to the campsite. When we arrived we were amazed to see that there was a whole herd grazing next to the campsite. We were so excited we parked the car and jumped out to get a closer look. Then the bison started moving closer to the cars and tents and walked right through the camping area! The picture you see includes Jacob's car and our tent. At the time we were on a hike on the ridge above the camp site.

Then we wanted to go on a hike. We put on our hiking boots and headed out into the backcountry. We were following a “buffalo trail” and came upon another buffalo who didn’t want to move so we went around him in a very wide berth.On another note, there were quite literally thousands of grasshoppers. As you walked almost anywhere, you would get pelted by them. In some cases it looked as if the ground was moving. Anyways, we kept moving down the trail. We were coming up to another herd of bison and were watching them watch us. After a couple minutes we saw why. There was a baby lying down in the grass and it took a while for us to figure out what it was. The bison were watching us because they thought we were getting too close to their baby! They started getting agitated and moving closer to us even though were probably a couple hundred feet away from them. That was enough to scare us and we high-tailed it out of there. As we hadn’t gotten very far from the campsite we decided to try to hike through a different area that didn’t have any agitated bison. We decided to hike up to the top of a ridge and were amazed that there were so many buffalo trails everywhere, even on the steepest of slopes. From the top we saw a huge herd of bison we wanted to go look at. They were back in the direction we had just run from but by now the agitated herd had moved on (through the campsite just like the others). We turned around and headed back that way and walked through a field with prairie dogs and their holes. They were keeping watch and chirping when we got too close for their comfort. Then they would pop down into their hole and another would start chirping. We hiked to the top of another ridge and had a good view of the huge herd we had seen earlier. They are so noisy you can hear them for miles. On the way back we found a fossil next to a dried up creek. Jacob got a picture; unfortunately there was a sign back at the campsite that said we could not remove fossils from the park. It looked like a clam’s shell, about 10 inches wide. Then we headed back to the camp for dinner. Then we played “Mad Libs” and went to bed before it was even dark. Another early rise tomorrow morning!