The Badlands of South Dakota

Today we ventured into the Badlands National Park. We drove the main road thru the park and continued onto the section that turned to gravel. We discovered a few "back ways" into the park as well via unpaved roads leading to either Interior, SD or Wall, SD.

The geologic formations are amazing, though colors were not as spectacular as they were when I visited with my mom in 1994. For that trip, we were visiting just after a period of a lot of rain and the colors were popping.

It was still beautiful and interesting, however, and we saw lots of bison and big horn sheep in the gravel road areas, along with tons of prarie dogs, a ground owl and a lone pronghorn antelope with a baby.

We had to break out our polartec fleece jackets as the temps this morning were in the 40s and only in the low 60s during the day. With the constant, strong winds that prevail in this area, we were quite chilly!

Speaking of chilly--we heard from a fellow traveller that the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier Nat'l Park was closed. I did a bit of research online and found out that there is still TONS of snow on the roads there--here's an excerpt from the "plowing status" there as of today:

Where are the Plows? Information Updated at 3:40PM on June 10, 2011

Going-to-the-Sun Road Plowing InformationWest Side Plowing Activity Yesterday, the crew continued plowing efforts in the Big Bend area. They encountered snow depths of 10-20 feet. Today, crews will continue clearing snow in Big Bend. East Side Plowing Activity Yesterday, crews continued to clear snow in the No Stump area (approx. 2 miles from vehicle closure). Snow depths are above average and in some areas, the snow is 30 feet deep. Today crews will continue removing snow from the No Stump area up to the East Tunnel.

Guess we'll have to slow down!!