The Traveling Tinkers - The Badlands

 



For centuries humans have viewed South Dakota's celebrated Badlands with a mix of dread and fascination.  The Lakota knew the place as mako sica.  Early French trappers called thee area les auvaises terres a traverser.  Both mean "bad lands." It was described as peaks and valleys of delicately banded colors - colors that shift in the sunshine, a thousand tints that color charts don't even show.  In the early morning and evening, when shadows are cast upon the infinite peaks or on the bright moonlit night when the whole region seems to be part of another world, the Badlands are an experience not easily forgotten.   Paleontologist Thaddeus Culbertson had a different reaction. "Fancy yourself on the hottest day in summer in the hottest spot of such a place without water - without an animal and scarce an insect astir - without a single flower to speak pleasant things to you and you will have some idea of the utter loneliness of the Bad Lands."

The Badlands are a place of extremes. You feel conflicting responses. The weather on our visit day was overcast, thus we didn't quite see the colors that may have presented on a sunny day.  You see eagles soar, the grasslands stretch forever, and mountains are spectacular. It is quiet. Very quiet.  The one thing that we delighted in was watching the prairie dogs playing in and out of their dug out holes. It is an area with the largest mixed grass prairie in the National Park system. 






























































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