Dakoting, Part 2: Badlands


Day 2

Checked out of Alex Johnson in Rapid city and drive to badlands. Got a bit lost on the way (Google Maps, you are not infallible), but got to see more prairie, so that was awesome (sarcasm).

Badlands is a dry desert collection of mud mountains like goblin valley state park.



All of this is like a less impressive version of Utah.

alright, so I'm a harsh critic. I expect a lot from my national parks. Vacations ain't cheap, know what I mean?

We mostly drive through park today, hung out at the visitor center and took pictures of bison.



The impressive thing about Badlands is, I think, is that it's a desert inexplicably in the middle of hundreds of miles of lush prairie land.


These lands are bad.


Windy. Like, cinch-the-baseball-cap-so-tight-that-I-can-feel-my-brain-being-squeezed windy.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wedding pics/story are here

Image
well, specifically, here: Our wedding A few choice shots: the last known photograph of jim heskett as a single man. that's anticipation in my eyes, not fear. it was one of the most whirlwind weeks of our life. I didn't feel the brunt of it as much as Lisa (since she did most of the planning) , but it was still pretty crazy. We decided literally about ten days before that we were going to get married. it's legal! We had, since getting engaged last November, talked through many different wedding scenarios: In Michigan, in Colorado, in Vegas... we couldn't seem to agree on anything, and we especially couldn't see throwing $25k-$50K on a one-day party. Plus the thought of months and months of picking out invitations,cakes, caterers... it just seemed like it would consume us and was not going to be what we wanted it to be - fun. attn: blog-only exclusive pic! for some reason, we did a bunny picture. don't ask me why. Of the scenarios we discussed, one we kept co
Read more

Singapore: the durian taste test

Image
Siewyee, my coworker, Singaporean tour guide/ambassador, took us to Bugis  market last night, to fulfil my mission of trying the Durian (aka 'the stinky fruit'). Singaporeans call it 'the king of all fruits', a delicacy. All I knew was that the smell and taste are famous. You can smell a durian from 10 feet away. Siewyee offers some Durian already shucked: chris takes a bite: reaction 1: reaction 2: brian takes a bite: reaction (note chris is still gagging on the left side of the picture): jim takes a bite: reaction: and it's done. the taste is like... i can't describe it. foul. and it stays with you for a while. we immediately rushed to get some indonesian barbeque as soon as the tasting was complete
Read more

evolution of y'all

Image
the day i made the conscious decision to stop saying "y'all" was a big step in my evolution as a human being. 3 days ago (or 4? i can't even tell anymore) i boarded a Qantas jet bound for los angeles. i had row to myself, which was pretty sweet. these new qantas planes have individual tv screens with a huge selection of movies. which was also pretty sweet. hurt locker is a good movie. anyway, got the pat-down in melourne before leaving. titilating. when i arrived at LAX, walked down the stairs to the customs lines. there were 50 lines, and the first dozen were full, so a customs guy was standing in front, telling people to move on down the line. some little asian guy, who just got off a 13-hour flight, prolly didn't speak english, was trying to enter one of the full lines. the customs guy yelled at him "hey buddy! what part of keep walking don't you understand?". yep, i'm back in america. two days with the fam in Texas, now i'm in boulder, ba
Read more