Okay, so where did we leave off?
If you’re reading this now, and follow us on social media, you know we got back home a while back. However, catching up to life, work, and commitments have kept us from keeping the travel blog up to date.
So let’s pretend we’re still on the road… still traveling across the country…
And now, we’re in the Badlands of South Dakota!
Much like most of the national parks and grand monuments of the United States, descriptions and photos just don’t do justice to actually being there.
It’s almost 250,000 acres of geologic formations, buffalo, sheep, rabbits, prairie dogs, jackalopes (maybe), and all sorts of birds. The name is the English version of the Lakota name, Mako Sica (which means “Bad lands”). It was considered bad because the weather extremes, the topography, very little safe water, and it was a hard place to live in. Historical research has shown that it was a place where the early people would sometimes hunt, but rarely establish homes in.
Of course, that has changed. In our modern times, it isn’t so much “Bad Lands” anymore, but, at best, “Slightly Annoying Rest Stop Land.” However, that name wouldn’t sell a lot of T-Shirts, so the original name was kept.
Either way, it’s magnificent. The topography is truly amazing.
And Jessica finally got a chance to see buffaloes which, for some reason, seemed to delight her. I was more amused by the prairie dogs, but, hey, I’m a dog person.
Our country is so beautiful….so glad we did a camping trip as a family across while our kids were still young and mom could go with us. Beautiful photos!
Awesome! Did you go through Deadwood and the Black Hills also?
Didn’t get a chance to unfortunately
When we went through the Badlands in ’86, Debbie got those prairie dogs to eat out of her hand.
I’ve got the picture somewhere…