"mako sica"

The Badlands ("mako sica" to the Dakota Indians or "land bad") is the best National Park we've seen yet ... oh wait, it's the first. But still - the history & views & camping are all spectacular! Here's a rundown:

The visitor pull-offs are nice & all, but getting off trail is where it's really at. We did the drive -through tour with foot detours that allowed for some spectacular sights & critter seeing. The pictures really speak for themselves, but a word about how the Badlands became, well ... bad.

Apparently, middle America was once under the sea & the Badlands are leftover deposits that fell from the surface. (Which means these pictures are better seen imagining fish swimming in the sky!) The layers represent different sediments: volcanic ash being one. To walk on the surface is like walking on really hard packed, crackly dirt - which makes one wonder why it hasn't all eroded away by now! The land that is flat is actually quite fertile - hence the grasslands around the Badlands themselves.

But enough environmental education ... on to the pictures! (sorry for the quantity - it's really hard to pick!)

This is one of our early views - and every Badlands photo shoot needs one reasonably good vista pic.
The clouds were feeling especially photogenic!
Note the 2 little pointy things in the upper right corner ... very cool.
Flowers in the Badlands - there were cactuses too, but that'd be a lot of pictures to include (like that'd actually stop us).
A perspective seen only a little off the beaten path.

Ahhh, Ernie - enjoying his time in the Badlands!
In the evening we left our campsite for a little hike to a hill we could see off in the distance so we could watch the sunset. This is a cool plant we saw quite a few of along the way. We also had to walk through a prairie dog city - also very cool!


Sunset pics from a field & then a random lookout not quite a mile from our camp.

The next morning, low rain clouds were coming in, but not before I snapped this pic of the tent. We slept with the fly off which meant amazing views of the stars in the great North Dakota sky!



These last 2 pics are from an area of the Badlands we visited the next morning we deemed to be a replica of Mars ... or maybe actually Mars! It was pretty unreal how different everything looked. Some might say this is where we belonged ...