We settled down in Montana in 2006. Prior to that we spent 3 years touring this beautiful country in a fifthwheel trailer. We saw so many amazing places along the way and today I’m sharing the Badlands.
Badlands National Park, South Dakota!
Every year as we traveled back to New Jersey from Montana we would skirt the Badlands and I told the hubby I wanted to stop one year. For some reason I am very drawn to desert like landscapes and this National Park definitely has those. The park has 244,000 acres and it’s in the Western prairie lands. The park opened in 1939 and is about 100 miles from its more famous neighbor, Mount Rushmore.
The photos I have were taken with a Sony CyberShot and printed so they are not the greatest. I scanned them into the computer. What I loved most about this park was the subtle colors in the rock formations. The red into coral into pink. All against an endless blue sky. The place was also full of prairie dogs. They would pop up out of their little holes and just stare at me. I love rodents….
When stopping to look at the beautiful vistas you just got a sense of being in a place that had seen so much time pass. Here you can see more greys with the pinks. I could sit and stare at landscapes like this for days on end but they are not the hubby’s cup of tea.
I don’t know why I love desert like places so much, but I do. Yes, I had short, red hair back then. I would go back and visit this park again in a flash. We really didn’t stay long; it was mostly a drive through. I would love to be there at night. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be so far away from any big cities with no lights around.
You can learn more at the National Park Service Badlands site and you can find the Badlands on Facebook.