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Badlands: South Dakota
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Badlands, South Dakota

	It was about 10pm when we left Rushmore, and since Badlands National Park was supposedly only an hour and a half away, we figured we would make the drive that night and camp just inside or outside of the park.  Wanting to drive through Pine Ridge Reservation (just south of the Badlands), which is historical and infamous for a number of reasons - namely, the Ogala Sioux Nation, the US extermination of Buffalo, Wounded Knee Massacre, conflicts between the American Indian Movement and the FBI in the 1970s, which most notably led to the imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, as well as the fact that Thunderheart was filmed here – we took the Southern, rather than the Northern route. 

As we drove south, we were suddenly on a dirt road, with no road signs, in pitch black, and with no hint of human life for miles and miles around.  Of course, the skies opened up and started spitting out large balls of hail, huge claps of thunder, and big bolts of lighting.  It was strangely very beautiful and very eerie all at the same time.  Long story short, between the inclement weather and unmarked dirt roads, we ended up about 70 miles south of where we should have been, and had to use our compass to find Badlands National Park.  Arriving at 2 in the morning at a primitive campground (a big sand/dirt lot in the middle of the prairie with no running water and two pit toilets) on the west side of the park, we set up our tent in the electrical storm, which had kicked up huge gusts of winds by this point, and faded off to an exhausted sleep.

The next morning, after packing up our tent in what were probably 50 mile per hour winds, we set off to explore the park.  If Joshua Tree and Bryce Canyon had a child, it would be Badlands National Park, with green and brown tufts of grass crowning juts of rock eroded by time, glistening with a red and yellow hue after the rain.  There is little if any sign of water and life in the park, even after a rain fall, just miles and miles of strange and awesome rock formations jutting up in one direction and miles and miles of prairie in another.   Although it appears that no life could survive in this hot and barren climate, surprisingly, buffalo once again thrive on the range, as do prairie dogs, coyotes, foxes, deer and other wild animals.   

There are three visitor centers in the park  - one up by the town of Wall, South Dakota, near the Northern Entrance (apparently Wall is somewhat like South of the Border on the East Coast – a big tourist trap advertising its wares in both directions for miles before you actually reach the exit-needless to say, we did not go here, but we her it is worth checking out), one in the area of the park managed by the Ogala Sioux in conjunction with the park service, near the south west entrance (we had passed by this center the night before on our way into the park), and one on the east side of the park (near the exit).  

After a long morning of checking out the sites in the park, we stopped at this last visitor’s center for some more information and some food.  While sitting down to eat, we marveled at the many different worlds colliding in this one place.  There were tons and tons of Sturgis motorcyclists on there way to or from the rally, families of all shapes and sizes from all over the world, 20 and 30 somethings on a road trip either for summer break, vacation or a big trip like us, cowboys (one family actually represented Grandpa on down to the 8 year old, all dressed  in cowboy hats, cowboy boots, denim shirts and jeans, and those silver studded and tipped belts like the ones our Presidents, Republicans and Democrats, alike insist on wearing.  Plus, the folks who ran the place appeared to be Ogala Sioux.  It was a melting pot alright.
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