South Dakota Road Trip: The Badlands

Over the long weekend of the 4th Mr X and I packed up and headed to South Dakota. Why, you ask? Because when you've got time off and you want to go somewhere, you go to South Dakota. Duh. At least that's how it seemed once we got there. I've never seen so many different license plates from so many different states all in one place at one time. I guess South Dakota is a hot spot for vacationing Americans. Who knew. Mr X had never been to Mt. Rushmore and we decided it was hit patriotic duty to remedy that so off we went.

We started off with some exploration of the Badlands National Park. We've come to the conclusion that while simply driving through National Parks is nice and all, exploring them on our feet via hiking trails affords for much more rewarding scenery so we try to do hikes in every National Park to which we visit. There aren't a lot of hikes in the Badlands though. So we found and hiked the longest one - approximately 10 miles.

As you can see from the photos, the sky was constantly threatening to unleash it's fury on us. It made the hike even more eerie than it already was with the strange and barren landscape and all. We constantly heard rumbles of thunder in the distance. At one point we did, in fact, get caught in the rain and thunder. We ran for cover next to a pathetic little rock/sand outcropping. We waited there for about 15 minutes for the rain and lightening to pass.

Much to our dismay, as we were waiting a really large bull snake decided that it would like some cover as well. (Yes, we were relieved that it was a bull snake, but it was still huge and it was still a snake so we still weren't pleased.) Unfortunately that snake wanted to take cover among some rocks right next to us. Mr X attempted to deter the snake by throwing rocks and sticks at it. That snake was undeviating in it's course. It slithered into the rocks about a foot away from where we were hunched up. At that point we both started looking at all of the rocks around us, wondering how many other snakes might be holed up among them. Creepy. Very creepy. The second the rain let up we practically sprinted back to the trail.