Day 18 Into the Badlands

Well I am very tired. Not only was it a long day it was a long night. Let me tell you about the night. Everything seemed okay. I had dinner and that went well and then I came back took a shower wrote up a blog and went to bed. Then the wind storm hit. It was scary. I mean it was Blair Witch attacking the tent scary. A video of how crazy strong it was is on my facebook or instagram. If you have made it this far you should know them but look up the IG at John.m.73

Okay so I did not get but maybe 4 hours of decent sleep I think.

But  woke up got a good ol KOA Pancake breakfast. Pancakes the size of a plate and some scrambled eggs and sausage and coffee. All was good. That cost a whole $7 with tip. Yeah I like that.

Then it was along the way to the Badlands with a stop at Scenic, SD. Two years ago we drove through there and the only place open was a gas station. When we went the church that had bought the town in 2015 had not done much. Now though there were signs everywhere talking about  Iglesia ni Cristo. Other than what is on wikipedia I dont know much. It still looks sad and desolate. And is the most expensive gas around.

I almost forgot before I hit Scenic I did see this . . . yeah South Dakota gotta love it

Todays journey into Badlands National Park took the team in from the west a whole new direction and ended up taking us through an area I had not seen in my previous visit.

The Sage Creek Basin Overlook and Hay Butte Overlook both look out across what is considered the Badlands wilderness.  For the record this is all in the North Unit.

Ranchers use to go up to the top of these buttes and farm all the hay and then package it up and slide it down the sides of the buttes. Crazy. Now its home only to what can get there.

I also got to see tons of Prairie Dogs again as there was Robert's Prairie Dog Town! 

After that I headed over to Wall Drug Store. Some quick musings. I feel soooo bad for the people that work there. Tourists for the most part and no offense but OLDER tourists, even people my age and up are just complete assholes. They refuse to read signs and are just complete jerks. Not all but a big portion.

But Man Wall has everything...

After Wall it was back into the park to start hitting trails. To be honest most were not really trails. The longest trail in the park is Castle Trail and is 5 miles one way, We were not doing that. Saddle Pass was the first test of my shoes and they failed.

My three year old Merrils have lost a ton of tread and it showed as I slipped and slid up and down the steep .25 mile trail. The videos show some of the insanity. The view over the white River Valley was nice though.

After a stop at the visitor center things got easier but hard at the same time but a lot more fun. I would hit the very easy Cliff Shelf Nature Trial. Then i would enter the Door and into the Badlands. And to finish it all off the Notch Trail. 

Before I show the ending of the Notch Trail which was the end of the day pretty much. Let me tell you about this trail. It winds through the Badlands and goes up a LONG ladder and follows a ledge to the "Notch" for a stunning view of the valley. That ladder is insane. There are no videos no pictures because all i was concentrating on was living. At this point I was behind a trio led by a man probably in his mid 20s maybe 30's who knew what he was doing. So i just followed them. I am still stunned that one of the two girls was doing this in some sort of sandals but whatever.

We would travel through everything and get to the end where the guy sturck up a conversation with me. While I did chat with him, I realized in hindsight that I had not said much as far as asking about him and his companions. Two things here. Both young ladies were really pretty so that always gets me flustered. Two, this guy, if i were a girl or gay, would love this guy. I mean he exuded confidence and was just .. let me tell you he did the ladder down walking . . it can be done but oh geez it was crazy. So yea I was not a good conversationalist. And I blew a chance to talk to cool people and learn about them. I can do it I know i can.

Well enough of that.. here is the stunning view. . .  oh there is video of that out there too.

Nite all