Mako Sica

Alright -- last post on the Badlands!!  Hahaha.  Here (as promised) are a series of pictures taken with the "real camera," interspersed with the top 5 most frequently asked questions according to the national park service website...  

Top 5 FAQs

1) Why is it called the Badlands?

The Lakota people were the first to call this place "mako sica" or "land bad." Extreme temperatures, lack of water, and the exposed rugged terrain led to this name. In the early 1900's, French-Canadian fur trappers called it "les mauvais terres pour traverse," or "bad lands to travel through."

Today, the term badlands has a more geologic definition. Badlands form when soft sedimentary rock is extensively eroded in a dry climate. The park's typical scenery of sharp spires, gullies, and ridges is a premier example of badlands topography. 

 

2) How long does it take to see the park?

It depends. To fully experience most of what the Badlands has to offer, it takes two days. To drive through the park and stop at a few overlooks, it takes about two hours. Here are a few highlights you won't want to miss & the minimum time needed.

• Drive the Highway 240 Badlands Loop Road (60 minutes if you do not stop at any overlooks)
• Stop at a minimum of two scenic overlooks (30 minutes)
• Drive the Sage Creek Rim Road to see animals and additional views (30 to 60 minutes - depending on distance covered)
• Hike a trail or explore the backcountry (variable time/distances - 30 minutes to all day)
• Attend a ranger fossil talk (30 min) or guided walk (60 minutes)
• Stop at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center (60 minutes)
• Go to the White River Visitor Center (45 minutes - does not include travel time to the facility)
• Take in a sunset or sunrise (20 minutes)
• Tour the South Unit of the park (45 minutes to all day)

3) Where can I see bison?

Bison live in the Badlands Wilderness Area (west side of the North Unit). You can usually see Bison from the Sage Creek Rim Road. This is also a good place to see prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, and other animals. 

4) What is the best place for sunset?

Try Pinnacles Overlook, Conata Basin Overlook, Bigfoot Pass Picnic Area, and the Norbeck Pass area. Walking east on the Castle Trail is a great way to view the changing light on the north side of the Badlands wall.

5) What is the best trail?

All of our trails are spectacular. You really can't go wrong! For a 1.5 mile moderate to strenuous trail, try the Notch Trail. For a longer more moderate hike try any section of the Castle Trail. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes and be prepared for current and predicted weather conditions. 

As for OUR testimonial -- if you've never been, we would all highly recommend it!  Seriously, guys.  GO!!! Other than being with family in Utah and the fun we had with them, the Badlands were the hands-down, universal favorite stop of the trip.  Next time we go, I think we'd like to spend even more time exploring and actually taking a hike along some of the trails.  And maybe if we REALLY want to get wild and crazy, we'll try and actually camp there.  Hahahaha.

Next stop?  Mount Rushmore...

i ❤️ south dakota

 {That sky, though!}

Wait a second -- are we still only on DAY TWO of recapping this trip???  Hahahaha.  What can I say -- this was one PACKED road trip!  Day Two (a Saturday) was our first "long" drive of the journey out west, and it was a rough one.  Certain children cannot handle being confined in the car with nothing to do for several hours at a time, and despite having come prepared with Kindle Fires and iPods and downloaded movies and games and audiobooks and headphones and regular books and notebooks and those road trip binders filled with license plate bingo and restaurant sign bingo and a complete itinerary of our trip, it still wasn't enough to structure Ethan's time in a productive way for our drive from Nauvoo to Sioux Falls, SD.  The only thing getting ALL the kids through the day was the promise of swimming at the hotel once we got there for the night.

 Yay!!! Finally getting out of that carseat!!!

 Falls Park

We spent Saturday night in Sioux Falls, and spent Day 3 (Sunday) exploring Falls Park before heading off across the state to get to the Badlands for our pit stop of the day.  An added bonus was staying at a hotel in Wall, SD -- home of the famed "Wall Drug."  We seriously started seeing signs for this place before we even got inside the state.  There were easily hundreds of these billboards advertising this drug store for miles and miles and miles.  What the heck is Wall Drug??? Was the question on everyone's mind.  {It is a drug store.  That has grown into a full-on shopping center.  That has benefited from the best advertising campaign of all time, because there's really nothing more to it.}  Hahahaha.

{Something about the prairie landscape of South Dakota really captured my fancy.}

But before we reached the Badlands, we made a lunch stop half way into our journey at the ONLY corn palace in the world!!!  Ethan was less than enthused about this unplanned stop on the itinerary and he let us know it.  And that's an understatement.  For everyone else, though, it was a nice break to get out and stretch our legs and grab some food while we were at it.  :)

 Mitchell, SD -- home of the Corn Palace.  :)

I literally have 50,000 pictures of the Badlands because it was so cool looking and everyone loved it so much, but as it is there are more than enough pictures for tonight's update.  A post devoted entirely to pictures of the Badlands with "the real camera" will be forthcoming.  Suffice it to say that we finished Day 3 with a happy bang!

 Pictures just really can't do justice to the view.

{Our time in the Badlands was split into two parts.  We were ahead of schedule when driving from the Corn Palace, so we went straight to the Park before checking into our hotel in Wall.  The first impressions were great and everyone was loving it, even if Scott and I were more than a little nervous with little kids running all around the crumbly mounds with fatally steep drop offs in some areas.  After snapping a few pictures, we drove to the Visitor's Center then attempted to take a few more pictures.  It was SUPER hot at that point and kids were getting hungry and overtired, so we bid adieu and headed to the hotel/Wall to get some food and rest up, with the plan being to head back to the Badlands in the morning for hiking around before leaving for Mt. Rushmore.  However, after some dinner and a quick and lovely storm, the evening had cooled off and the kids were ready for Round 2 of exploring at the Park.  We drove "the Loop" around the Park and it was aMAZing!  The sky looked crazy cool, the LANDSCAPE looked crazy cool, and the kids had a crazy cool time hiking around and climbing when we stopped at a couple different lookout points.  The kids wore themselves out, and rewarded us for the fun day by giving us the best night's sleep of the trip -- even WITH every single one of us sharing the same exact room. ;) }

{Here's where we inserted our dinner break and a storm came through...}

 When we came back the second time, we came through a separate entrance that was closer to the town of Wall.

 For this particular shot, I had to make Jane get back in the car because she was making me too nervous with the heavy winds and her runaway/wandering/not listening tendencies.

{#sorrynotsorry for the photo dump, but come ON -- how amazing is this view????}