South Dakota Part 2
Badlands was another crazy cool park. Like Yellowstone, I was in awe of all of the animals there. I felt like I was in a David Attenborough nature show. All along the park road, and especially down the dirt road to the backcountry campground, there were super pretty birds, mountain sheep, antelope, deer, prairie dogs, coyotes, bison,... amazing.
Not only was watching the animals in their natural habitat beautiful, the landscape was too. Badlands National Park is a combination of prairie grassland and also crazy shaped layered rock formations that make a very desert, desolate feel. The rocks were similar to the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, but colored very differently and with obvious layers. These formations formed when there once was a sea covering the region and the water drained as continental plates shifted. That is one reason Badlands is a really great place to find fossils.
After driving the park road and stopping at some great overlooks, I went to the visitors center to watch the park movie and see the exhibits, and I learned about some hiking trails. Then I went to the trail head for the window, door, and notch trails. Window was short and sweet. Door was really cool because I could follow the main trail but there was also a backcountry trail that split off where I wandered around the rocks on my own for a while and got to take in the scenery nice and peacefully. Notch trail was great; part of it was climbing up a ladder. At the end, I found a private little cubby hole in the rock that had a great view of the valley below. I just laid there for a long time watching the birds and just listened to my surroundings.
The two nights I stayed at Badlands, I camped at Sage Creek Campground, which is in the wilderness area of the park. That means I had to travel a long way down a bumpy dirt road where I saw tons of animals like I mentioned before. The campground was very primitive, just a circular parking area for a few cars and some picnic tables and pit toilets. No water, no electricity, no fire pits, but a lot of nature. The campground was great because its neighbors to a prairie dog town and its right on a bison grazing path. So one night I watched bison grazing right along and the next night I had a front row seat to a couple of coyotes hunting prairie dogs. I loved it; I never felt so close to the wild before.
While I was visiting Badlands, I also took the time to stop by Minuteman Missile National Historical Site. I wasn't planning to go there, I didn't even know it existed, but I passed by it right across the interstate from Badlands so I stopped in. It was very interesting. I learned the U.S. Great Plains region was home to 1000 Minuteman missiles during the Cold War and now 450 are still active. There are not any more Minuteman's in South Dakota but now a launch center and launch control facility are part of the national park. While I was there, I toured the launch control facility where missileers and other staff worked. From outside and the even inside on the first floor, the building really just looks like a house. There is a volleyball net, a kitchen, bedrooms, and a living room with couches. But underground, there was a nuclear attack proof capsule where two missileers worked 24 hour shifts at the ready to launch a missile. After that tour, I drove to the Delta-09 launch site and did the cell phone tour of a missile in its silo and surrounding equipment. The whole park was very interesting and I learned a lot about the Cold War I didn't know before.
I had a great time in all of the South Dakota parks. And again, even though they were so close together, they were all very different. I saw many new things and learned so much. Like the old Westerns set in the area, it was a tale of adventure, intrigue, war, beauty, and serenity.
