Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 5:49 PM
Subject: Badlands
After driving across the rest of SD on Thursday,
with a few stops for gas and at the "world famous Corn Palace" I
arrived at the Badlands. Just after starting out for the day I stopped
at this really small town a few miles of the interstate to buy some gas.
You know that you are the outsider when you are walking out of the gas
station/grocery/cafe and you catch the old Amish guy furtively checking you
out. Here is a picture of the Corn Palace, don't bother if you are ever
driving through, the pictures of the ones they made years ago look cool, but
now it is just a building with a few ears of corn stapled to the outside.
Typical
scenery on the drive
Missouri River
I got to the Badlands and was immediately blown
away. Of course, it was cloudy, so the pictures here aren't the best but
you get the idea.....
Stopped at the welcome station to talk to a ranger
about good hikes and camping. There was a free campground at the other
end of the park where I planned to stay. Headed out for an amazing drive
through the park to the campground, along the way stopped at the prairie dog
town, and just beyond that there was this herd of Bison....
After only a few hours in the park, I decided that
everybody should go the Badlands before their time is up. From what I
hear, I will be saying that about a lot of places on this trip, so everybody
reading this start planning your trips out West.
The van and the new tires seemed to be holding
their own on the dirt road. Got to the campground which was basically a
big field with a few picnic tables and two composting bathrooms. I was
setting up the camper when two people walked over to introduce themselves.
Chris and Brooke had been admiring my van, as they had been searching for one
before they started their trip. We talked for a little bit, they were
two weeks into a similar adventure, heading out West for a while, no real
agenda or end in sight. Turns out they were getting ready to head down
the road to get some wine with the people camped next to them and asked me to
join them. That night nine of us sat around drinking wine, beer, and
margaritas (until we ran out of mix, then it was just tequila). As the
night went on, we heard Coyotes barking and howling off in the wilderness, saw
some shooting stars too. Turns out we were all on some kind of similar
trip. Jamie and Lacy were two school teachers who had spent the summer
in Colorado and were headed home. Alex is a junior at NYU from Duluth
who is taking a year off to go to Portland and snowboard, he was traveling
with his high school friend Kai, who was mostly very quiet. There was
another couple whose names I can't remember that were from Florida and were
also a few weeks into an open ended trip West. The next day when Jamie
and Lacy were leaving we all took a group shot around the van. It was on
my real camera so I can't share it with you yet, but everybody had a great
time and seemed to really connect. As I am writing this 2 weeks later I
can tell you that I didn't fully appreciate it, because it was so early in the
trip I didn't know that this doesn't happen everywhere, but as it turns out,
even though I meet cool people everywhere, meeting a group like that was
somewhat unique. It was like some kind of crazy Karma thing that we all
ended up in the same place at the same time, all at the same little corner of
the campground.
After everybody took off that morning, I started
getting ready to do some backpacking in the Badlands.....
