After traveling the whole day yesterday, today we get to do actual sightseeing. Our first monumentally exciting sight was the breakfast buffet. I had a pancake, jelly donut, and 2 sausages. Once we got into the car, I was pleasantly jumpscared by a virtual, GPS-based tour guide (VGPSBTG). It was useful though, gave us a bunch of much needed info and options. The second sight was the prairie homestead, which was built by the Native Americans. The homestead was built out of grass. The bricks, roof, walls, all made out of grass. Why? The same reason it’s called the “Badlands”.
Now, I have yet to mention something, the weather. Bright, sunny, 70 degrees, 50 mph deadly gusts that will make insurance companies bankrupt. Truly the best weather for exploring the Badlands! Taking this into consideration, only one of us brought a windcheater. Next up, the Big Badlands Overlook. Here, our main goal was survival. Once you reach the bench, you will need a hood, a hat will exit the atmosphere. Other than that, this is a good sunrise spot. But make sure to bolt your tripod to the ground.
After braving the elements, we arrived at the hopefully windproof Visitors Center. Specifically, the Ben Reifel Visitors Center. The gift shop was tantalizing. So many cool things, but just barely out of our non-existent budget. You need to check it out though (or you haven’t been to Badlands National Park).
We also watched the park movie, which talked about how the Native Americans survived. It talks about wildlife and their cruelly smart survival tactics. But the Native Americans had their own cruel survival tactics though. So, sleep with one eye open tonight!
After that eye-opening experience, our virtual and exceedingly helpful tour guide led us to the window and door trails. The name is because they open into windows and doors into the endless Badlads Wall respectively. But we took a stop at the Cliff Shelf trail first.
The Cliff shelf trail is a really short loop that goes up a partly boardwalk path and loops back down with rattlesnake warnings the whole way through! It’s mostly scenic while offering views of a small juniper forest that feeds off a desert oasis.
Now it’s time for the Door Trail. The door, as we soon realized, is literally a V-shaped opening in the wall at the entrance, but the trail continued off the boardwalk and into the cool rock formations that were eroding away. It’s actually very satisfying to watch the rocks crumble under my fingers. At the end of the trail there was an enormous valley, and I swear the wind was trying to throw me to my death. In the valley I saw what looked like a prairie dog scurrying up and down the valley walls. After that we went to a shorter trail. By which I mean the distance from your house to your school bus stop. This trail was way more fun. Of course, by that I mean scaling what looked like Mother Nature had tried to recreate the colosseum and got bored before she got halfway through. Although I’m not telling the entire truth if I said it wasn’t more fun scaling the rocks than your average school day. After the blistering windy day so far, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t heavenly when we walked into the infamous Wall Drug Store which is just about the farthest you can get from a drug store. It had talking sculptures that were holding shotguns and rifles, it also had a lot of souvenir shops and a restaurant where we had lunch. I had chicken strips with an enormous chocolate chip cookie. Since I loved learning about WW2 and other wars, the tanks, the rifles, and the other spoils of war in the souvenir shop caught my eye, but unfortunately my mom wouldn’t let me buy anything because there could be better stores later. I’m not complaining because we were spending one more night here at the end of our trip.
Now we will officially begin the long haul — but I’m not being fair, driving the Badlands loop was surprisingly fun. I had actually picked up a junior Ranger book, read a pamphlet filled with propaganda to make me pay attention at the visitor center but I finished it way too fast and I was bored again. Luckily, we had our virtual GPS based tour guide VGPSBTG to keep us company.
Our first destination was the fossil exhibit trail, otherwise known as the 950 million year walk which, thank God (even though I don’t believe in God) does not mean 950 million years of walking, just 950,000,000 years of evolution on a self-guided tour presented on a boardwalk. I used my time wisely trying to find fossils in the mounds of rock which was just an excuse to mess around with rocks and watch them crumble. After that we just stopped at the White River valley overlook. Nothing much, but I did learn about the Badlands wall. It’s a wall made-up of eroded particles from rock formations in the Badlands.
Now we reach the deadliest of them all, panorama point. I had heard that on trails in Patagonia, kids would fly for a few seconds in the wind. I see what they meant now and have a newfound appreciation for everyone who went through it. I couldn’t even walk straight! Once I reached the viewpoint, I sat on a bench where the wind almost gave me a buzz cut. Bigfoot pass wasn’t much better, the benches which had roofs attached to them were swaying in the wind. Needless to say we were in and out quickly for both. Then we made a small stop on the road to take pictures of Prairie dogs. Even though they look cute they have a defense system which is deadly they have these flea guards that can jump 10 feet in one hop the deadly part though is that these fleas carry the bubonic plague. The same plague that wiped out half of Europe in the 1400s. Our last major stop on the Badlands loop was the yellow mounds. More glorious crumbling rocks except this was like artist’s palette in Death Valley. All we really did was climb the mounds of colored dirt. Finally, we had reached the end of the long road. Our last stop was Roberts Prairie dog town which was a colony of prairie dogs complete with underground tunnels and everything though we didn’t see many prairie dogs in the extreme wind. Now we have reached the end of Day 2.
*Closing music* in three, two, o- HOLD ON! I’m not done yet!
For dinner we ate at the Badlands Saloon in Wall, SD which got its name from the Badlands wall. Then we went to our hotel and went to sleep not necessarily in that order. See you tomorrow!
*Closing music (for real this time)*
