Badlands of South Dakota

Hello Hivers, nature lovers, and pinmappers. Another amazing place I have visited on my vacation. The weather was absolutely beautiful today. It was an overcast day and the temperatures stayed in 70 F range all day.

What you see above are the formations at Badlands National Park located in South Dakota, U.S.A. Admission to get into this park is $30 per vehicle unless your like me who got in for free. If your active duty, veteran, or retired military entry is free. Make sure you have enough gas in your vehicle before entering because you will need it especially if you plan on taking the Badlands Loop State Scenic Byway, a 62 mile round trip drive.

Why is it called the Badlands? Prior to being a National Park many entered the area and many did not return. Both early explorers and the Lakota people (Native Americans) referred to it as bad lands. It's such a huge area that once you get into to it's hard to to determine where you started. If that doesn't get you the loose rock gravel could cause a long fall if your not careful. If your the best rock climber in the world you will have no chance if you encounter and get bitten by a rattle snake.

There are so many peaks and all are a little bit different. Some just look that man has touched making into habit, giving religious meaning or something else. This is not the case though. This place was once covered by an inland sea carving the land scape. Once it resided it left sediments. The whole process was the work of 75 million years. There have been fossils found of marine life. There are signs to not take any fossils or plant life.

Seeing the canyons and seeing land what is kind of normal land is really cool. I tell you almost everything you see here is picture worthy. It's a good thing it's not 30 years ago because I would have used so many rolls of film.

There are so many wild sunflowers here. There not the only flowers here but they dominant the ground where they can grow. A lot of the visitors here try to capture them with the scenery here. I guess I'm no different, haha. If the sun was bright and shiny today I bet they would have looked a little more lively. I seen some fields of farm sunflowers today as well and some looked sad as they were pointing towards the ground. Rest assured I will visit them tomorrow when it will be bright and sunny.

Pictured above another selfie of me and one I took of my son. He was actually making me quite nervous as he got a tad to close to the edge. He wasn't exactly wearing gripping foot wear. It was a good 200 feet drop at the edge probably more. I can't count how many view point areas with parking there were on the long stretch of road I drove. There are also many trails for hikers to partake in. Also if you want to spend the night here there are plenty of camping sites.

One thing that is posted a lot here is the no pet sign. I can understand as their is many cliffs and not to mention our four legged friends would find snakes, spot other wild life and would want to investigate further.

So there is wild life here at the Badlands.Some of the wild life includes eagles, big horn sheep, buffalo, pronghorn and prairie dogs. We only caught two on our venture today. A big horn sheep from a really long distance away. It was confirmed with a gentleman with some binoculars. The buffalo was easy to spot and didn't hide well behind a tree, haha. Eventually he came toward the road and crossed it. Once he hit pavement I got back in my car. I may have broken the 100 foot rule, oh well.

I hope you enjoyed this nice vacation spot I visited. I have lots more places that I have visited already and will see some more tomorrow. I'm starting to get addicted to nature on this road trip.

Thanks for taking the time to read. It is very much appreciated. Take care, be safe, and enjoy the week ahead.