The Badlands

The Badlands were anything but bad. They were beautiful, wild, foreign, and humbling. We stayed in the town of Interior, and our campground felt like it was right out of an old west movie. The owner would stand with his boots propped up on the bottom rung of the split rail fence, blast Johnny Cash and answer any question asked with as few syllables as possible. He was the real deal!

We took a trail ride the first morning we were there through some of the most amazing country I had ever seen. The horses were really good on the steep and rough terrain, and our trail guide, Candace, was wonderful with us as well as the horses.

We patrolled the Badlands National Park by car and by foot finding some of the most incredible views imaginable. I will let the pictures speak for themselves, keep in mind they are missing the amazing scale of everything. It was a really good reminder how small we are as human beings, and how huge and unclaimed parts of this country still is.

The afternoon after our Trail Ride (one of the hotter days) we drove to Wind Cave National Park with a short stop to tweak the nose of our first president. The cave promised 50-55 degree temps. We took an hour and fifteen minute tour and were awed by the vastness that can be found underground. This particular cave boasts 275 miles of explored passages. They believe that the 275 miles is only 5% of the actual caverns. Our guide Mary told us that the rest of the passages may be too small for a body to fit or they might be one giant room.

Josh and I also celebrated our minus one year wedding anniversary on August, 16. We stayed at the beautiful Black Forest Inn (courtesy of Terry and Sue Nagel) in Rapid City. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Fireside and then a hot tub and champagne (courtesy of Candace and Tim, our good friends from NH)

After leaving the Badlands and heading toward Montana we realized that even though the Badlands were amazing we needed green, and mountains. The first time we saw hills after we left we both sighed, and smiled each other. On this trip we have visited so many wonderful landscapes, sometimes it is nice to just know that we are leaving somewhere that we would love to visit again.