High Plains Drifting

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We left Yellowstone on Thursday, August 6th, and headed east on Wyoming state highway 14. We stopped at Cody, Wyoming for burgers at a roadside bar where everybody else was either a cowboy or a biker. We felt a little out of place (i.e. scared manureless) in our yuppie REI gear. We spent the night sleeping next to rattlers in the beautiful red Bighorn mountain range. Luckily, we didn't meet any of our rattler neighbors.

We got up early next morning and after a slight delay (highway closed for an hour), we drove into South Dakota to see the presidents in stone - a childhood dream of Eva's. That afternoon we were staring up at the magnificent nostrils of Abe, Thomas, Ted and George at Mount Rushmore.

Ever since Yellowstone, we had been noticing a lot of bikers on the road. Their numbers just increased as we headed east. We learned later that our trip coincided with the 69th bike rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Half the people visiting Rushmore that day were biker! They made quite a striking impression below the monument. America, the Biker Nation!

We left Mount Rushmore in the afternoon and headed further east over the high, barren plains of South Dakota with storm clouds on either side of us. We had planned to drive into Badlands National Park and check out the campsites there to spend the night.

Neither of us knew what to expect from the Badlands - I almost balked at paying the entrance fee. Yet minutes after entering the park, and just a day after the wonders of Yellowstone, Eva declared "I am overwhelmed by the beauty! It's too much beauty!"

The Badlands is an area of sharp red spires, pinnacles, and deep gorges painted with stripes. It was formed during the ice age when glaciers gouged the land, exposing an ancient seabed. It is a forbidding land, desolate and dry. Unlike Yellowstone, it was not overrun by tourists - in fact we saw very few visitors during our drive through. As the sun was setting, the sky turned pink and red as the rock formations cast dramatic shadows throughout the land. As we drove through the land at dusk, the clouds were becoming darker and were releasing lightning all around us. I was certain we would run into a dinosaur around the next bend! (And just hoped that it would be a plant eater!)

The area is not called the Badlands for nothing. As we learned the next day, French fur traders gave it the name because it was inhospitable. Homesteaders tried to farm the land but quit within a few years. We tried camping there that night, but there was no shelter at the campground and the wind was so strong it bent our tent at a 45-degree angle. The clouds around us threatened a storm, so we left and found a more sheltered KOA campground just outside the park (with warm showers the next morning!).

Our night was peaceful enough. There was a brief heavy shower, but it passed us within a few minutes. We learned later that some nearby campgrounds had hailstorms. We returned to the Badlands that morning for a brief hike, then continued east on I-90.

Minnesota and Wisconsin were left unexplored as we drove the rest of the day and through the night to arrive at Eva's parents' home in Des Plaines, Illinois early Sunday morning.

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Photos

The Badlands
I was in awe when the plains opened up in the Badlands to reveal the painted canyon landscapes!

Sunset clouds over Badlands prairie
I love this photograph!