Badlands National Park

It took me nearly 3 hours to get through the park because I was constantly getting in and out of the car. The park truly took my breath away. I have never seen anything like it before and the cool, misty light that shrouded everything made it even more like a dreamy, moonscape, hallucination. I will say I lost my footing a few times just from the sheer expanse of the badlands.

Here’s a link for more information: http://www3.northern.edu/natsource/HABITATS/Sdbadl1.htm

Chris

Badlands and Grasslands

Lusk, WY
Elevation: 5,020 ft.

I am definitely posting much more regularly than I anticipated. I owe it all to the cold, lonely camp grounds that “forced” me to bite the bullet and stay in warm, wifi-filled hotel rooms haha. With a few bites of powdered eggs and a stick of french toast in my stomach I hit the road with as much momentum I could muster - today was going to be a driving day. It took several hours to reach Badlands National Park from Sioux Falls but it was well worth it. To do the park any justice I will do a separate post with just high res photos. The long drive gave me a chance to practice some in-car back exercises. By lifting my legs and curling my abs forward (think a v-sit while sitting) and then applying opposite pressure with my arms against my knees I was able to engage the painful area in my lower back. I’m not really sure what the problem is but I want to think I have a pinched nerve in my lower lumbar. The amount of pain isn’t proportional to the amount of movement or strain I’m putting on it. Anyways, it made it a lot less painful to get out of the car to refill gas or to use the restroom - progress. 

The plan after Badlands was to visit Wall Drug (a supposedly famous store), Mount Rushmore and then rendezvous with Ellen in Laramie, WY. But by the time I was able to finally peel myself away from Badlands hypnotizing landscapes it was already nearly 1700 hours. The drive to Laramie would be at least 5 hours and I really didn’t want to drive at night. Long story short I ended up visiting Wall Drug, skipping Mount Rushmore and checking into a hotel in Lusk, WY. Falling in and out of cellphone signal as the roads got longer and darker was giving me a bad feeling and I decided that an early morning start would be safer and wiser. 

If there is one thing that I gained from driving as late as I did it would be that  got to see my first sunset. Southwest South Dakota is markedly different from the rest of the southern part of the state. Instead of flat farm lands expanding endlessly around the highway it gives way to rolling hills with smatterings of cattle and pines. With the sun starting to set the hillsides were illuminated in a way that I imagined ancient Greece must have looked like. I’m not crazy - I read a lot of mythology books growing up. As I crossed the state line into Wyoming the sunset turned golden. I have to admit I was getting scared as I became the only one on the road and thousands of potential accident scenarios started playing through my head. I quickly grabbed my favorite Turnpike Troubadours album and blasted it as I watched my first Wyoming sun set. It brought me a lot of comfort and was, arguably,  my most country moment till date. 

Tomorrow is Wyoming and shortly after it will be Colorado and then, finally, Oregon. It’s hard to believe I have made it this far already. As much as all this driving has been wearing me down I already miss the simplicity of being on the road. All you worry about it gas, miles, food and finding somewhere to sleep at the end of the day. It is both a carefree, spontaneous feeling and a stressful, anxious feeling. But I will miss it. But I think that experiences like this, or any for that matter, don’t just end when they end. I think that they chisel away at us and create something new with less. I don’t if that makes any sense but, for me, I feel like I am shedding more and more of the extraneous parts of me as I drive…Alas, life is short but also long, I look forward to it.

Chris