Obviously these were not taken today, but in June 2011. I’d never processed them and the current weather is too blah for a daily
By the time we got to The Badlands on the Trip to hell South Dakota, we were not being bad a$$es. The status of familial relations was such, we were politely exclaiming to each other: “WOW, The Badlands! Look, how cool. Super!”
Just shut up. I give not a jot that you’re hungry, thirsty … have dysentery. Behold: there is a natural wonder before us. Appreciate!
It was so windy, however, so we had to band together because someone could easily have toppled down into a precipice if one was huffily skulking around on one’s own. But I have to say, the Badlands are very impressive. The landscape seems to move and morph in front of you, and suck you in to thinking you’re in ancient Egypt or somewhere, umm, mythical. Ranger Rick and his progeny were all suffering a tough of vertigo. Bee scared us stupid by standing out on tiny ledges and spinning in the gusts. Thankfully the tube of Vegemite we had on hand talked her in.
The vista was exponentially more impressive than Mount Rushmore: You’re kidding me? I drove all this way for THIS? Perhaps the rain detracted from the gravitas of the monument, though I am suitably in awe of how well catchlights are carved into the eyes.
But at the Badlands, we were genuinely wondrous.
But, then not too much, because I saw this. Homeward bound.
