INTRODUCTION
Rapid City, South Dakota, is the best place to begin an exploration of the Dakotas. There’s pretty good air service and it’s not far from three of the places that are “must-sees” in the area: Badlands National Park, Custer State Park, and Mount Rushmore National Monument. Very close by are three additional wonderful places: Wind Cave National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and Crazy Horse Tribal Monument. Other attractions abound as well: Wall, South Dakota, with the world famous drug store, Spearfish Canyon, and the North Dakota special spot the Enchanted Highway running from Dickinson to Regent. What a great place to spend some days getting to know each other better and to see some of America’s big mammals in their natural habitats!
TEDDY ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK (TRNP)
Getting There
Following an on-time arrival at the airport for Suzanne & Hetty from Syracuse and for Kay & Lois from an early departure from a local movie theater where they were trying to escape the heat, we four started out for Medora, North Dakota. Medora is a small faux western town that is the gateway to TRNP as well as the only place to stay close to the South Unit of the Park. The distance from Rapid City to Medora is about 250 miles (4 hour drive) through mostly empty countryside on both sides of the state border. There are isolated farms and ranches with some tiny towns sprinkled along the roadside seemingly at random. Corn is the big crop in South Dakota. As you enter North Dakota, the land changes to a drier environment that does not support much in the way of crops. Occasional cattle are seen but this definitely is not King Ranch country.
Along the way we also saw “the biggest damned bird in the Dakotas!” It turned out to be a white pelican all by itself afloat on a roadside pond. He really did look enormous as Lois and Suzanne agreed. We also saw lots of pronghorn antelope as well as a very bedraggled looking osprey. Good start
for animal watching; after all, Hetty had never seen America’s only antelope before. Our long trip was also relieved by a really beautiful sunset!
The Bunkhouse
Our first night was spent enjoying our plain but adequate digs at the Bunkhouse a trailer-like affair with small rooms including private bathrooms. All anyone really needs, right? Just a clean place to lay the head and wash the body. The Bunkhouse was our home base for exploring both units of the park. Interesting sidelight: the convenience store clerk told us that the temperature had risen to 112 the last couple of days. Oh wow how hot can that feel?
Another tasty bit of Americana, the clerk at the Medora Motel where we checked in told us she had waited in line since midnight on Thursday to get her copy of the last Harry Potter book! She had driven 35 miles to a WalMart in the next town of any size, Dickinson, where she had scored her success. She was obviously enjoying her victory because she really didn’t want to take her nose out of the book and had a little trouble with our “double” reservation switch. Somehow the reservationist I contacted by phone had reserved 4 rooms for us instead of just the 2 we wanted. It was all worked out when another, older, clerk came over to redo all the charges and credits. Our young reader quickly returned to the adventures of Harry. Good to see that even out here in the hinterlands, the kids love Harry Potter and actually READ the books rather than waiting for the movies!
TRNP South Unit
Game Drives in the Park
Even in America, “game drives” have to start early so we were driving into the South Unit of TR Nat’l Park around 7 a.m. And what a day we had! All of us were truly enthralled with all the creatures we saw. The temperatures were hot, the sky cloudless, and muted greens on the badland bluffs and valleys were glowing. Animal observation opportunities were hot, hot, hot too! Right away we encountered the buffalo that Suzanne had promised Hetty she would see. There were babies trying to suckle very uncooperative mothers and bulls standing stolidly in their enormity; some of them so close
to the car that we could almost feel their breath on our faces through the closed window glass. Off and on, we followed the buffalo herds during the day since they are obviously partial to the paved road and didn’t mind being “road hogs” at all.
Bunnies were everywhere as were prairie dogs demonstrating all their various behaviors serving as lookouts, grazing, gathering grasses to take underground, playing with one another, piping their alarm cries with their heads pointing skyward and their little bodies squeezing the sound out from their tiny toes.
The feral horses were not interested in playing hide and seek with us. We spotted their small families on the horizon with the winds ruffllng their manes and tails and down in hollows peacefully grazing and stamping at flies.
Buffalos & Wild Turkeys
One of our very best encounters of the trip occurred in the evening of this first day; we had supper with the buffalo herd as they moseyed down the road in no hurry at all. We were completely surrounded by about 200 of them, bulls, cows, and young. Watching their interactions and having them so close to us made that PBJ sandwich supper really special. All of us agreed that this experience would remain a highpoint of the trip.
Wild turkeys were also in abundance little crowds of young ones accompanied by two or three adult females. Blended families perhaps or maybe just shared babysitting duties. The turkeys are not the
most attractive of birds, but the chicks are cute and it is fun to see them darting through the tall grasses keeping up with their seniors!
Hikes Yikes!
During this first day, we took the “scoria walk” (about two miles roundtrip) and realized that hiking in the open at 105 degrees is not the most pleasant or wisest thing to do, but we were interested in the information we gathered on the walk. We learned about the coal seams and the “below the earth” fires as well as the “clinker” that forms when the soil burns.
We also had the enormous privilege of seeing a three foot prairie rattler on a ledge hiding from the direct sun but warming up in the “oven of air” surrounding him. Though we did not find him “cuddly,” he was a handsome fellow.
Flowers and birds decorated our paths and the roads as well. We saw ashy sunflowers and purple bergamot everywhere cheery and rocking in the wind. Many birds flitted and floated about, and we were all sure we were seeing Eastern Bluebirds. However, a visit with an informative young ranger soon set us straight on that misapprehension the lovely blue birds were actually lazuli buntings. Small and bright they are too.
A surprise lunch awaited us in Medora when we fled the park in the heat of mid-day. We ate at the Rough Rider Restaurant and found really good food there when we were only seeking air-conditioning. The soups and salads were really fresh and tasty and we knew we would return to this unexpected oasis again.
TRNP North Unit
Our second day found us on the road up to the North Unit at 6 a.m. since the drive takes just a little less than two hours (70 miles away). The country in between is pretty lonesome with rolling fields but no cattle and very few signs of human habitation.
The badlands themselves are gentled here by the considerable greenery though there are no very bright shades of green. No one was manning the entrance to the North Unit so we drove directly in and had breakfast in the Campground area with Lois’ constant companion (her thermometer) informing us that the temp was already 103 at 8AM. When we left Medora, it had been only 70. Redheaded woodpeckers kept us company, but so did the maddening black flies that bit aggressively and painfully!
On our ride round the park, we saw very little really except for bunnies and six of the longhorn steers which are kept as part of the human history of the area.
Before the park was established, longhorn cattle had been raised in this part of North Dakota. This Unit of the park is greener so it is less harsh and austere. We tried a walk in the blazing heat but it really wasn’t pleasant at all and the trail guide became boring through its constant repetition.
We learned about “slumps” (mini-landslides that shape the scenery) and “piping” (elongated formations that appear on the bluff-faces) and “concrete
eggs” (rounded formations that appear to extrude from some of the blufffaces as erosion reveals this harder rock).
On our drive heading back to Medora, we spotted three mule deer bucks bounding along the side of the road as if on pogo sticks! That was a pleasant end to our visit to the North Unit of the park. Our interview with the boyishlooking ranger at the Visitor Center was also a fun thing to do. Despite the dearth of animals, we were happy with our visit there.
The Enchanted Highway
The third day found us on the road to Dickinson and the Enchanted Highway! What we did not know as we drove the lonesome road towards the small town became really clear to us on arrival. The national weather report had predicted that this little dot on the North Dakota map would be the hottest place in the nation on the very day we were visiting; as predicted the thermometer reading topped out at 116 degrees! Dickinson had a very accommodating Visitors Center and we
learned there just how to get to the Enchanted Highway. They also had a comfortably appointed (just like home) ladies room that we all enjoyed.
Lois had found the Enchanted Highway on the Website for North Dakota. A retired principal in the area, Gary Greff, had decided that something needed to be done to bring tourists to his part of the state. He began creating huge outdoor metal sculptures at intervals between Dickinson and his hometown of Regent. He used scrap metal from the oil and mining operations in the area and picked up all kinds of useful metals, screening, pipes, and oil drums, to complete the works.
The large sunburst with geese flying all around the oval shape was the first sculpture to welcome us to his exhibit along the state highway.
Others included enormous deer, with the buck jumping a fence, a partridge family, a human tin-man family made of oil drums, grasshoppers in a field of tin wheat, a fishing pond complete with leaping rainbow trout and fisherman in a dinghy floating above all the fish. All are painted appropriate colors and all are whimsical and fun. There’s a less satisfying depiction of Teddy Roosevelt on horseback done without color but of course he had to include Teddy because of his association with this part of the USA and his pushing for the national park on the land he owned and the contiguous pieces.
Even the 116-degree heat did not deter us from hopping out at each installation and taking pictures of it and ourselves. At the Fisherman’s Dream, Mr. Greff’s newest exhibit, we actually met the hardworking artist himself. He was sunburned and wiry with standout white teeth in a gracious smile.
Mr. Greff told us that he does all the work himself from digging the holes to fabricating the various metal sections of the pieces. He leases a quarter of an acre from farmers along the route (most of the farmers actually gift him the small parcel for a dollar or less) to erect the art and he does all maintenance on the works himself. Each installation costs around $40,000; he pays for them himself with the help of donations from visitors, local businesses, farmers. We were happy to be able to congratulate him on his imaginative and quite wellexecuted artworks. We donated some money in one of the “alms” cans at a local store in the town of Regent and Suzanne made a purchase in memory of Brother Walt.
Then we stopped in the local gas station/convenience store where we talked with the proprietress, Trish, about the weather of course, and learned a little about how difficult it is to run a profitable farm or business in the area. A cattle rancher must have 350 acres before he can even think of making money on ranching. Trish told us that the population in the area is shrinking and young people are not willing to stay here once they have their freedom, primarily because there are no jobs and the young do not want to farm or ranch.
We bought an ice cream in a local parlor and shook our heads over the fate of Mr. Gregg’s attempt to bring tourists here with his sculptures as the years go by and more people leave the state. With so few people living in the already small town and more emigrating all the time, artist Gregg is probably not going to be able to revitalize the area with his charming outdoor art works.
The Dakota Dinosaur Museum
Back in Dickinson on a still really hot day, we went to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum and thoroughly enjoyed their air-conditioning. Oh yes, and the museum itself is quite wonderful too.
There are bones and replicas of bones of creatures excavated in the general area with excellent written materials explaining digs, research results, and
the place of these critters on the evolutionary map. A large display of rocks and semi-precious and precious stones from around the world is also pretty absorbing. Many of them had been either cut and polished, or simply split so various planes could be observed. Others had been carved into objets d’art for display. Very small museum very well done!
The Joachim Museum
Another associated building housed the Joachim Museum. This exhibit was also quite compelling (and also kept us inside in the A/C). The main attraction here was the portraits of the various farmers and cattlemen who had settled in this area and lived successful lives here in the early days following the opening of the west. The photographs revealed that most of the men had come here immediately prior to the Civil War and beyond until the droughts and weather changes drove them out. Each photograph was accompanied by a brief but intriguing story covering the sitter’s life and times in this part of North Dakota. There were also pictures of the area itself that documented the changes over the years. Quite interesting.
The night before leaving TRNP, we had a delicious dinner at the Rough Riders to celebrate Kay’s birthday. We had already had two lunches there and knew it was the best spot for a good meal with leisurely dining and time to talk about our favorite things so far. Everyone agreed that the spacious blue skies and the animal sightings were the best parts of the visit to the Park but we all had enjoyed the Enchanted Highway as well. None of us really thought we would want to live in the area though everyone could see some appeal some of us more than others, of course. The strange and tortured landscapes were also memorable to all of us and our supper with the buffalo was the very top experience.
We were back to the Bunkhouse by 9 p.m. where the temperature still stood at 93 degrees!
ON THE ROAD TO SOUTH DAKOTA
On our 4th day, we started out early for South Dakota and Custer State Park with all kinds of sightseeing in between. There was thunder and lightning and the temp was only 78 degrees so we felt quite invigorated and ready for the road. We stopped by Painted Canyon for a last look and it was quite compelling because of a very odd light quality (almost greenish-gray), electrical streaks across the skies, and rolling thunder. Twenty buffalo were clustered around the parking lot, unfazed by the atmospherics and seeming to enjoy the mist & rain falling on their broad backs.
We reluctantly drove away to start on our 400-mile journey south but we were happy to find that the temperatures dropped steadily until we were finally 38 degrees cooler than in North Dakota! Not only that, the bothersome biting black flies did not follow us down to Custer Hallelujah!
We passed through several small towns on the way: Ludlow, Buffalo, and Bowman. Even did some shopping in Bowman at a nice little “supermarket.” Lots of rain appeared in the distance and on the horizons, but it never came to the road we were traveling. South Dakota was welcoming with bright blue skies and cooler temperatures although it must be said that this was only in relative terms. Spearfish Canyon is beautiful with its little creek rushing by and the high gray walls of the Black Hills huddling by the roadway. We stopped and had a picnic beside the creek and enjoyed the water sounds, the warm sunshine, and the pleasant breezes after the unrelenting heat of North Dakota.
The little Victorian town of Lead (pronounced Leed) greeted us with its gingerbread houses, lacy fences and furbelows and very steep streets. We got lost for a while looking and photographing and just exploring; but who cared? It was a very pleasant interlude indeed.
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL PARK
We arrived at Mount Rushmore in the threatening rain and lightning and stepped into the movie theater first to see how the carvings were accomplished. It is a fascinating story of determination and courage. It was gratifying to know that no one was killed during all that very dangerous
dynamiting, climbing rock faces, and swinging on primitive looking equipment out over the abyss. When we exited the building, we found that the rangers had closed the longer trails so we walked the shorter one that took us as close to the face of the mountain as we were likely to get. Luckily, the Monument was not crowded for a summer day. We were all struck by how unhappy and bored all the kids looked so we started actively searching for one child who looked as if he/she was enjoying the visit. No such luck.
We agreed with the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who said he hoped his carving of the four presidential faces would “last until only wind and rain would erase it.” Borglum never completed his ambitious final plan for the monument which had included adding torsos to the faces. The faces in the rocky shoulder of the mountain are actually more impressive without additional more extensive carving. As the mountain is now, the visitor really concentrates on those iconic faces without distraction.
CRAZY HORSE TRIBAL MONUMENT
Next we visited a project that is even less complete than Borglum’s the Sioux Indian project to commemorate Crazy Horse. If it is ever finished, the carving of the Chief will be about three times larger than the entire mountain of Mt. Rushmore. But there is a daunting amount of work to be done before it is much more than a suggestion of the total plans.
The work is being carried on by a single family but the progress is achingly slow! There is an enormous gift shop complex selling every kind trinket, memento, T-shirt, etc., imaginable and it must be a part of the fundraising effort of the Sioux because they proudly state that they have accepted no big donations from state or federal government. They also charge exorbitantly for parking no doubt more “alms” collecting.
CUSTER STATE PARK
We entered Custer State Park from the west heading towards our home for the next two nights the Custer State Game Lodge. On the way we discovered a side road that took us up high to a fire tower and communications building. What a spectacular view we got of the whole area with the beautiful meadows & valleys in the Park surrounded by the craggy and angular Black Hills. No wonder the Indians of the area are so enraged by the white man’s takeover of this land which is sacred to them! It is truly beautiful and haunting scenery. Much more green than anything we have seen before now and also much more inhabitable-looking for man & beast.
MARMOT
Besides the knockout scenery, we also saw lots of creatures from our faraway and up high vantage point; we saw marmots, even elk for those who could espy them through some powerful binoculars, pronghorns, white tailed deer, turkeys with little chicks, and a mystery animal that we could never identify. But it was a great view and made us ready for the next day when we could drive the game loop and see things closer.
Pronghorn Antelopes
Continuing on our way to the Game Lodge, we saw so many pronghorn antelope we had begun to believe that they were taking over the west. But they are such a delight to see that we didn’t mind at all. Pronghorn are called antelope but they are not antelopes at all.
They are a unique species with no near relatives. They are the 2nd fastest animal on land (second only to cheetahs but they have much more stamina than cheetahs and can run at top speed far longer than cheetahs). They also have enormous eyes which are like 8X binoculars and have 360 degree vision. Heart and lungs are much larger than those of deer and other ungulates. Unlike other ungulates, they also possess a gallbladder, so their diet is wider than many grazers. Both genders have horns, but only the males sport the distinctive prong on the end of theirs. Females have a smaller straight horn growth.
Prairie Dog Town
We also visited the Prairie Dog Town where we saw a creature we had not seen before a 13-banded ground squirrel, living among the prairie dogs but much smaller and flatter to the ground than they. We also saw the odd buffalo, lots more turkey families and deer. However, we did not see the promised “mystery” animal anywhere along the way.
The Custer Game Lodge
The Custer Game Lodge is a gracious old building dating from the 1930s. It has updated itself since those days with air conditioning and indoor plumbing. The restaurant serves good food at reasonable prices and the location of the lodge is perfect since it sits on the wildlife loop. There is a long porch with comfortable chairs and we wished we had more time to spend relaxing and enjoying that amenity.
During the night we had a terrific rainstorm with plenty of thunder and lightning. It was enjoyable after the hot and dry places we have been.
Animal Sightings on the Loop Road
On the second day, the air was clean and clear as we rose to greet the morning and start on our anticipated wildlife loop drive and the visit to Wind Cave National Park a little later in the day. The animals did not disappoint us by hiding in the woodsy areas but were all clearly visible either on the road or quite near it: buffalo, turkeys, prairie dogs, deer, and pronghorn. Everything except the ever-elusive coyote and elk which we really did not expect to see here. Our hope was for the Wind Cave grounds to support some elk near enough to see.
At last we even saw the “mystery” animal the feral donkeys. Quite a big herd was on the road, blocking our path. There were fellows, girls, mammas, babies and adolescents in the herd.
All are friendly and very sure that tourists mean something tasty to eat. So despite all the warnings about wild animals and advice not to feed the donkeys, we all hopped right out and began to pet the friendlier ones and folks around us had food for them as well. Some had even thought to bring healthy snacks, like carrots! All was peaceful and enjoyable. Suddenly one of the males began braying and showing his teeth and glaring angrily at a female donkey standing among some amiable motorcyclists who were feeding the donkeys near them. When the jenny heard his loud vocalizations, she slid around behind a motorcycle to hide. He then took off after her almost colliding with some of the bikers who scattered at his belligerent approach. He routed the jenny who kicked back at him. He kept nipping at her rear parts and she continued kicking back at him all the while on the run. Soon they ran down a hill in the road and disappeared from view. We could hear the braying as it faded away with the Doppler effect.
So all the people wondered aloud what on earth had just happened, but we had no answers and soon just concentrated on the many donkeys still standing placidly among us. As we were getting ready to return to the car and move on towards Wind Cave, we saw the exhausted male and female plodding back up the hill. They were trudging slowly with heads hanging low, but side by side. We all concluded that they were not usually prone to such mad dashes up hill and down. They paid each other no attention as they rejoined the rest of the herd. Some puzzle!
WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK
We arrived at Wind Cave National Park in the early afternoon, in time for three of the intrepid explorers to sign up for one of the guided tours of the cave. Suzanne, Hetty, & Kay (Lois pled “claustrophobia” & abstained) enjoyed their sojourn underground and reported that it was a very interesting place, unlike any other caves they had visited in that there were no stalactites or stalagmites because there is no continuously dripping water. Instead the features to be remembered were the “boxwork” and “frostwork” and the “popcorn” formations.
There are also no indigenous bats using this cave but there are some different bacteria that do reside there. The “spelunkers” enjoyed their explorations but were glad that they had the benefit of electric lights and strong flashlights, unlike the people who discovered the care earlier in the 19th century and wandered around in it using candles!
The National Park Service roads brought us back from Wind Cave National Park to the abutting boundary of Custer State Park. It was along these dirt roads that we hoped to see some elk. However, our patience and persistence were not rewarded with any elk at all. But we all agreed that we had excellent compensation for that disappointment in the magnificent country we were exploring, the gorgeous light that rained down on us, the extensive views of hills, skies and clouds, red earth, and greenery everywhere. It was a truly spectacular evening that brought us back to the Game Lodge.
WALL DRUG STORE
We left Custer at 6 a.m. Friday morning so that we could have breakfast at Wall Drug Store.
The little town doesn’t look like it’s grown much since the early days, but the drugstore complex has metastasized enormously. From its roots as a small town pharmacy through its ingenious marketing campaign in World War II with free ice water for all who stopped, the place has sprouted many rooms offering kitsch for sale, ice cream parlors, candy shops, art museums, funhouses for the kids, western wear, camping goods, and several types of restaurants. Because it is out in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Rapid City and the Badlands National Park, it has become a tourist destination in its own right as well as a natural stopover between the two sites. The Burma-Shave type highway signage continues with billboards every few miles on the road between the Black Hills and Sioux Falls on the eastern border of the state.
BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK
After our walloping big breakfast from the buffet, we did a little souvenir shopping and then returned to the road for the rest of the trip to the Badlands NP. Though TRNP also contains “badlands,” they are nowhere near as “bad” as those in South Dakota.
These are harsh, sharp, bone dry, without softening vegetation. There is no water to be seen anywhere in these parts and every butte face and cliff side looks hostile, not just inhospitable! The sunlight is intense and biting and sears everything. The park road pavement was literally melting under the onslaught. And yet, and yet, there is a majestic kind of beauty here, a haughty unconcern with fostering life. Any plant or animal that survives here has to fight its way against the bitter landscape and callous weather. But subtle pastel colors in the rocks and “walls” of stone are lovely and varied in many kinds of light. The beauty is there, but the severity of the place made us all admire the Indians who had made a home here as well as the pioneers who had to cross this “bad land” to reach their dreams further beyond into the West.
Game Drives
The cottages we had reserved at Cedar Pass were not available to us until 2 p.m. so we went out on the Park Loop Road looking for creatures. Buffalo were readily seen in small groups as well as single bulls. Hetty spotted a bighorn female sitting out on the prow of an enormous butte taking the sun in the only flat place to be seen in the area.
Pine Ridge Reservation Concessions
She was collared so it was clear that these creatures are studied as they are reestablishing themselves in this area. We watched her for a while and she changed position occasionally, but she was settled in for a while.
Supper was at the very busy Cedar Pass Restaurant and was just about as greasy as Kay and Lois remembered it from a previous visit. However, it is the only game in town and so everything tasted just swell. What had changed was the size and extent of the attached gift shop. It was quite a bit bigger on the outside and had much more to offer on the inside. Much of what is on sale is Indian Kitsch but at least the Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation have the concession for the entire complex, cottages, gift shop and restaurant. That’s how it should be of course!
The little cottages are also the same, cute and comfortable, but definitely dated. The window A/C units worked but they were extremely noisy in their efforts to cool the little rooms down a bit from the really hot daytime hours. The courtyard was perhaps a bit drier but the tiny bunnies ran free and so did the cheeky magpies we remembered so well. The bunnies live under the cottages and in various holes in the ground. The trees rustle dryly in the too warm breezes, but the picnic tables and benches are inviting nonetheless. We did enjoy some late afternoon reading outside until the gnats drove us back indoors.
Our second night in the cottages, we went “natural” and turned off the AC units and opened every window and relied on the screen doors for security. It was way more pleasant plus Suzanne and Hetty heard coyotes in the night (as close as we got to “seeing” one).
Castle Walk Trail
Saturday in the Badlands started with a really “healthy” breakfast at the Cedar Pass Restaurant at 7 a.m. We proceeded to the Castle Walk trailhead and walked about an hour and a half while enjoying the views and the very unchallenging walk through the weird badland formations.
It got more and more torrid and finally reached 93 degrees under a remorselessly incandescent sun. We saw only chipmunks skittering around
the eroded table formations as they traveled from the grassy tops where they foraged down to their “home holes” in the sheer faces of those miniature buttes. Erosion has created many of these rounded, free-standing formations that really do look like tables set for giants.
Humans intruded on our walk in the form of a quartet of obnoxious lawyers who were totally unwilling to obey signs which informed hikers of where to walk and where not to walk. We didn’t care too much for spending any time with them.
A lone lady hiker looked quite fit and impervious to the sun’s assault.
Surreally, after having had no cell phone service in the park at all, Lois’ phone rang in a place surrounded by both the “little tables” and further away, the “wall” of the Badlands.
It was Betsy telling us that Sharon had been admitted to the hospital with chest pain on Friday but that all was well in that her EKGs were normal as were her cardiac enzymes. However, they were planning to keep her until Monday at which time a stress test would be performed in the hospital. The
docs evidently attributed her chest pain to esophageal spasm (which she has had before but not accompanied by profuse sweating). How strange that we received that call when no others had reached us nor had we been able to call anyone ourselves.
That Castle Walk terminated in a wonderful PBJ lunch with exquisitely made sandwiches dressed with Doritos. How bad could that be well, just ask Elvis, I guess. Anyway, it was surely delicious.
The arid cottage courtyard beckoned to us next and we gave in to the siren call and spent the hottest part of the day reading and relaxing there. During the early part of the day, the pestiferous gnats were not bugging us. Around 2:30 p.m., the “safari wagon” reloaded and we went back out on the Loop Road searching for creatures again. The animals were wiser than we huntresses and so we didn’t really see much before returning to the cottages to gather our walking gear for the evening stroll. But we did spot buffalo, deer, prairie dogs, meadowlarks, and turkeys again.
Badland Bison
A little note about today’s buffalo is necessary at this point. It is estimated by biologists that before the westward expansion of the Europeans, there were between 40 & 60 million buffalo roaming the mid-continental states, chiefly the prairies, though there was a subspecies that preferred the woodsy terrains. At any rate, through indiscriminate slaughter, to the everlasting pain and sorrow of the Indians who had revered the animals and actually had rituals of apology and gratitude to the individual buffalo who fed, clothed and equipped them for survival on the open plains, by the 20th century, there were only between 15,000 and 30,000 of the creatures still surviving. Today there are about 450,000 buffalo in the confines of the USA (there are additional buffalo in parts of Canada as well). Most of present-day buffalo are bred for food and have been crossbred with domestic cattle to produce a more desirable meat. Interestingly enough, all the crossbred animals continue to look just like a purebred buffalo; no external characteristics of cattle have overcome the buffalo’s own. Altogether it is estimated that out of the 450,000 animals only about 35,000 are purebred wild buffalo and these reside mostly in the national parks and grasslands. Sad story, isn’t it? But at least they are being preserved now.
The Notch Walk
At 5:30 p.m., we left the cottage compound and made for the infamous Notch Walk where Kay and Lois had so humiliated themselves many years ago. The long ago incident has created gales of laughter whenever it is told and it is surprising that we would want to re-create it. To reach the “notch” which is a “V” shaped opening in the Badlands Wall where a marvelous view of the countryside is waiting, it is necessary to climb a log ladder up about 25-30 feet onto a ledge where the trail continues to the “notch.” The 4-inch logs are held together by wire cables and are spaced about two feet apart.
The ladder hangs from the top of the ledge and descends the face of the butte, sometimes touching the rocks and sometimes swinging free. It really is not a difficult climb as long as you keep your balance by carefully placing your feet squarely on the log rungs.
On this day, Lois failed to do this and fell off the ladder, luckily to the side so that no one below her was hurt and neither was she since Kay swung her sideways into some brush that was growing that far up the wall. Following that slight mishap, we continued on up the ladder and out onto the ledge.
The walk to the notch is not difficult at all except that there are some very narrow places with steep drop-offs that you have negotiate carefully and that would give anyone with acrophobia the “heebie-jeebies.”
Hetty admitted to that particular fear and stopped before those places were reached. She waited further back on the trail and looked forward to the pictures of the view from the Notch. Suzanne, Kay and Lois proceeded and enjoyed the wonderful wide expanse of the lands beyond the Badlands “wall.”
The ridiculous part of the walk occurred on the descent on the log ladder. In the past the ladder stretched below the bottom of the bluff and ran along the ground for a bit (not true today).
All those yearsago, when Kay and Lois climbed carefully down the ladder they were unaware they had actually reached the bottom of the bluff and continued on their hands and knees a few “steps” before realizing that they were now “crawling” along the flat ground! Quickly leaping upthey looked all around to see if anyone had observed that undignified and insane ending to a very good walk. We did not repeat that act for Suzanne and Hetty since the ladder no longer allows for such a stupid mistake!
Back to the Cedar Pass Restaurant for supper and then we went out again in search of anything we could find, but concentrating on the full moon for photographic memorable moments.
The radiant sunset that seemed to last forever was a spectacular subject for some very special photos. Then across the sky to the East, the full moon rose over the wall, becoming more yellow by the degree of ascent. The sunset continued at the same time the luminescent moon climbed higher and higher. A clear sky only emphasized the glory of that moon. But then something even more fantastic, something that created a truly “magic hour,” occurred, beyond any kind of anticipation.
On our climb up the ladder to the Notch, we had seen a man with a female Husky ascending the rungs as well. We wondered how he would ever get the dog back down and asked him. He told us that he would carry her if necessary since she is used to that kind of help because she is a mushing dog who often must be helped over logs, cracks in the ice, or other hurdles. While we were taking our pictures of the sun and moon, the man appeared in his van and we flagged him down to ask about the dog. He had indeed carried her down the ladder and all had ended well. Then off-handedly, he asked if we were interested in seeing some bighorn sheep and pointed to the “Door Walk” which we had done earlier, and said they were down at the end of the wooden walkway.
Bighorn Surprise at the Door Walk
With hurried thanks, we practically ran along the walkway to reach its end where a great view awaited about 50 feet below. There, with the sun and moon still competing in a magnificent sky show, we gazed down through the ever-darkening depths and saw four female bighorn sheep walking along the bottom and grazing on the dry grasses. It was so quiet that we could clearly hear their wonderful suction-cup feet tapping on the stones and discern the crunch of their teeth on the grasses as they munched their supper.
The music of their activities was soon accompanied by another instrument the heavily flapping wings of bats who swooped and dipped over our heads catching at the insects still welling up from the arroyo below. What a symphony of sights and sounds. The final crescendo was created by one of the does that scampered straight up a 10 ft. bluff without any discernible effort. She looked positively balletic in her movement. Such a miraculous evening! Who could have asked for anything more to end a perfect time in the Badlands, which are not “bad” at all!
July 29: Kay’s Birthday
Our last day together was Kay’s birthday (need we say which one? Nah). Needless to say, sister Suzanne had several surprises planned. A happy birthday banner was somehow installed in our cottage without Kay’s knowledge. There were birthday greeting cards as well which took some of the sting out of the day. We had breakfast at the restaurant for a last time and then stopped at the Visitors Center to quiz a ranger on some of the questions that had arisen during our brief time in the Badlands. We wanted to know what kind of bats had accompanied our wonderful evening and learned that they were either Indiana or brown bats as both species live here. We also were curious about the numbers of bison and bighorn in the Park and were told the buffalo herd is maintained at between 800 to1000 individuals. There are now 150 bighorns, from an initial re-introduction herd of 20 about 15 years ago. The elusive coyote exists here in amounts “too numerous to count”; yet we did not see a single one the whole time we were in the Dakotas! Oh well, we didn’t miss much else on this wonderful trip!
CONCLUSION
Our hot vacation filled us all with warm memories of togetherness and of the beauty of this interesting and strangely beautiful part of the USA. No wonder at all that Indians want it back!
