South Dakota Part 1: The Badlands

Our visas expired in October, so we had to leave Canada and come back in through the International Airport.  We decided to go to see Mt Rushmore in South Dakota for the long weekend (as our visas expired on a Thursday).  To our surprise, there were lots of other things to do in South Dakota as well!

Stephen's Opa told us a story about the Wall Drug Store - it's in the middle of nowhere in a tiny town in South Dakota, and it was a failing business until they put up signs on the highways nearby saying "Free Ice Water at the Wall Drug Store".  It saved the business and became a huge thing - apparently it was such a big thing that troops in World War II were putting Wall Drug Store signs up in Europe.  Nowadays it's a massive tourist trap selling all sorts of crap, of course.

The Badlands National Park.  Apparently 69 million years ago the whole of the middle of North America was an ocean - over time, the water left and various rivers and flood plains left deposits of different minerals there.  In the last 500,000 years, erosion has started to wear away at the deposits, and that's how we can see the distinctive layered patterns.

The strangest part is that the whole plain is completely flat - except for these rock formations.  Completely dead flat.

Look out for the Rattlesnakes!  Luckily it was too cold for us to see any.  At the start of October it was 5 degrees C in the middle of the day.

The coolest thing is that the lines from the different layers show up so clearly that it tricks and confuses your eyes.

We went for a couple of km long walk through some of the rocks, including a climb of about 50m up a ladder made of logs.  The funniest part of America is that the society is so litigious... but then you go to a National Park and you can climb 50m up the side of a cliff and wander around on top of the cliff and there are no railings or warning signs or anything.

Stephen found a hole to hang out in.  We have no idea where this hole came from or why it was there.

So we are pretty sure that South Dakota is where the Windows XP desktop wallpaper came from - doesn't that look exactly the same?  It was really disconcerting - I would turn around and jump because I felt like I was inside the computer.

Us in the Badlands!

There were plenty of animals hanging around in the Badlands as well - these are mountain goats.

That tiny little dot in the middle of the plateau is a bison.  I spotted it from that far away!

Here's a bison from a bit closer.  There were warning signs up everywhere that said not to get out of your car because they will charge you.

This is a prairie dog.  There were heaps of them wandering around in prairie dog villages - foraging near their holes.  They weren't scared of the car, but as soon as we opened the door and got out, they ran away.

There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 1.  Here's part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.