After spending the weekend in Houghton, MI and a few days in Minneapolis, MN, I left early Tuesday (5/13), heading to Badlands National Park on the west side of South Dakota. Corn fields, cows, and flatness were all I saw for hours. On highway 90, some cows decided to break outta jail. I crawled along at 5 mph as the one brave cow jogged alongside, pooping the whole time, before deciding to stand directly in front of my car and ponder life for a while. The other cows just looked on, not knowing what to do with their new freedom.
Badlands National Park couldn't have come soon enough. I expected boring in South Dakota and it delivered for some pretty long stretches. Got my National Park pass which for $80.00 gets you unlimited access to all national parks for one year. Good work government.
I decided to camp on the west side of the park at Sage Creek.
Bison greeted me at the campsite and they couldn't care less that I or anyone else was there. On a side note, what is the difference between bison and buffalo and what is the correct term here? According to my rigorous Wikipedia research, the American bison resides only in North America (obviously), while the two main types of buffalo actually reside in Africa and Asia. The European bison does live in isolated parts of Poland. Basically, if it's in North America, probably not a buffalo. Feel free to use this information to condescendingly correct your friends and impress them with your new Wikipedia knowledge.
I parked my car, set up the tent, and took a long walk to take in the view, bison herds, and sunset. Below is a photo of the Sage Creek Basin with a few bison hangin around. Kinda hard to see the bison but they're there.
Early the following morning (5/14), I headed to Mt. Rushmore and Black Hills National Forest. Arriving at Mt. Rushmore, kinda hard not to feel a little American pride.
What other place will blast the side of a mountain off just to commemorate the "founding, expansion, unification, and preservation" of their country? Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt represent each item listed in my semi-sarcastic, but awe inspired quip.
On the left, had a nice couple take a photo of me in front of Mt. Rushmore while right is the actual model used for pointing, a process of ensuring the actual moonument had proper scale. Mt. Rushmore stands 60 ft. tall (size of the faces) while the model is a 1/12 the size.
Black Hills National Forest was my next stop and I'll have an update on this shortly. Also coming sooon will be a post highlighting a pretty serious environmental problem of the Black Hills, the mountain pine beetle.
Check Facebook for more photos of my trip.
I parked my car, set up the tent, and took a long walk to take in the view, bison herds, and sunset. Below is a photo of the Sage Creek Basin with a few bison hangin around. Kinda hard to see the bison but they're there.
Early the following morning (5/14), I headed to Mt. Rushmore and Black Hills National Forest. Arriving at Mt. Rushmore, kinda hard not to feel a little American pride.
What other place will blast the side of a mountain off just to commemorate the "founding, expansion, unification, and preservation" of their country? Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt represent each item listed in my semi-sarcastic, but awe inspired quip.
On the left, had a nice couple take a photo of me in front of Mt. Rushmore while right is the actual model used for pointing, a process of ensuring the actual moonument had proper scale. Mt. Rushmore stands 60 ft. tall (size of the faces) while the model is a 1/12 the size.
Black Hills National Forest was my next stop and I'll have an update on this shortly. Also coming sooon will be a post highlighting a pretty serious environmental problem of the Black Hills, the mountain pine beetle.
Check Facebook for more photos of my trip.
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