The Badlands are naughty

I woke up the next morning with a blanket I had put over my face in my sleep to keep me warm as I guess I’m a little too tall for my sleeping bag. Since we don’t spoon in the tent, we go head to toe, and fortunately for Ryan, his face was on the side underneath the rain shield, so he didn’t wake up face covered in morning dew. Before I could even get myself out of the tent, Ryan told me to hurry and I caught the tail end of a Wolf jogging away from out campsite. I was disappointed that I didn’t grab my camera in time, but luckily 27 vultures squawked there way into our campsite and this time I was prepared.

Anyway, it was bright and early and we were hoping to catch the sunrise at the exit before we had gotten off to camp for the night that had signage for “Scenic Overlook”. The Buffalo Gap National Grassland to our rear, with what was well over 40 cows mooing, was quite the experience. Note how bright the moon is.

Here’s a shot of what The Badlands looked like before entering.

Avoiding the prairie dog tourist trap, we continued down the road to the entrance of The Badlands.

Even if we hadn’t just driven hundreds of miles across flat, dull, and mind numbing parts of the U.S of A., The Badlands were an amazing sight.

I was also amazed to find that we could hike off the paths here too as The Badlands are made up of soil that, when wet, is extremely difficult to travel across, which is exactly why it was given its name. Here are some shots of our adventure off the beaten path.

And we were treated to some cool animals like a herd of some type of goat,

a heard of elk,

prairie dogs,

and some close encounters with some bison, one of which I was hanging out the window for trying to get my shot as Ryan slowly backed up the Camry. What I can only assume was the alpha male bison of the group was having a frightening staring contest with us; apparently, they can run up 30mph. So we figured we didn’t want to provoke him too much.

On the way through, we stopped several times just for some good photo opps.

And the yellow hills impressive as well.

Next stop, Black Hills National Forest!