Day 4 - Row-lands in the Bad-lands

Crossed into the Mountain Time Zone today on I-90 and stopped at South Dakota’s Lewis and Clark exhibit. Learned that Merewether Lewis bought the boat they used for their expedition in Pittsburgh.

From there we landed in Badlands National Park, located in southwest South Dakota. Aldous Huxley once said “Maybe this world is another planet’s hell”. He may have been thinking about the Badlands. It was 95 degrees F when we pulled into the campground. Hard to believe it hits -40 with constant winds in the winter. Not an area we’d consider retiring to, for sure.

Having said that, the scenery was breathtaking. It is a place of buttes, peaks, gullies and wide prairies – the largest mixed grass prairie in the US National Park System. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was totally blown away in 1935: ‘What I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere – a distant architecture, ethereal ….an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created of it”.

Planning to check out some trails tomorrow with lots of water in the backpacks.

Stayed at: Cedar Pass Campground. Within park, electric only.