Badlands National Park, SD

We were here a couple of years ago and were so impressed by the weird beauty of the park, we just had to stop by again.

The terrain looks not-of-the-earth.  I think some of these small mountains were used in some sci-fi movies back in the fifties.

The thing that makes this place so unique, at least from my perspective, is the contrasting scenes.  You first see the mesmerizing art work of the barren hills, and a glance in another direction and you see a beautiful prairie grasslands, a place where millions of buffalo roamed just 160 years ago.

I'm sure Hollywood has been here many times making movies.  It's just too darn right for a flick or two.

Nancy caught me gazing into the chasms of nothing, but something...huh?

There are several trails that are available, but we only did the fossil trail of 600 meters.  Whew!

The layers of different minerals are evident throughout the park.  I guess the geologists can tell what is going here, but to me, it's just a wonder.

At one of the overlooks, we were very lucky to catch a couple of Bighorn Sheep "tight-rocking" around this mountain.  Real dare devils....

We found out later that these two are rare seen by visitors doing the walk-around the mountain.  We felt very fortunate to see these wonderful creatures.

 

We also saw these "pals"...whispering sweet nothings to each other...

These little critters are always willing to pose or put on a show for the visitors.

The end of the day was just gorgeous.  We just watched the western sky for almost 30 minutes before filling up a bowl with some Breyer's strawberry with chocolate shell over the top. 

And it only got better after that refreshing bowl of ice cream...We again watched the moon rise over the distant low mountain.  Awesome.  Time to retire...

So ends our time in the Badlands NP.  We stayed at the Cedar Pass Campground in the park, and we stayed for two nights.  The second day we spent most of the day cleaning the coach, inside & out.  The coach looks nice.  But in a day or two on the roads, it'll look like we never touched it.  Oh well.  On the way out of the Badlands, we stopped by Scenic for 30 minutes, just long enough for a pic or two.  I'll share those with you in the next blog.  Till then, RVing Beach Bums.