Another first for your two super heros.
The campsite has a train track running right alongside, and for the first time ever we were not woken by a train blowing it’s hooter at some unearthly hour!
We stayed up all night just to not hear it!
We did some laundry and chores. Well Marlipops did, The Captain sat and made sure no one stole the coach.
We then went to the Badlands.
First, we stopped at Wall. This town, 70 miles from our campsite, is supposebly world famous for it’s drug store, and free iced water. Of course, Me and the Pops obviously don’t belong to this world, coz we had never heard of it.
It was a nothing town back in the depression, which was the nineteen twenties and thirties era, (not when the Wolves lost ten in a row,) and a couple bought the local drug store and decided to give free iced water to thirsty travelers. The Mount Rushmore sculptures were being built at the time and they reasoned that when they were finished a lot of tourists would be in the area. They were not wrong. The town of Wall is now a wall to wall tourist trap. It does have one thing that made it to the top of Captain Cautious’ s***t list, the absolute worst fish and chips in the world. Garbage. I took one bite and threw them away.
So, we left quickly, and took the 35 mile scenic drive along the Badlands loop. This area is the first US National Park, so designated millions of years ago by some president, and is very pleasant.
It was named Badlands by some early French explorers or trappers, who said it was a bad land to travel through, meaning the terrain was difficult to traverse. Once again, we wondered why there had been a problem, since we followed all the signs and roads, without getting lost once.
A mini Grand Canyon is the best way to describe this area, compact, but varying vastly in color and texture. There are sharp jagged rocks and hills, and smaller rounded hillocks, and all changing color due to strata levels, yellows, reds, greens and pinks. Certain areas look as though the colors have been painted on.
There is one flat plateau called Hay Butte. This is several acres big, and years ago homesteaders used it for grass. However, the slopes up to it are so steep that grazing animals could not get up. The homesteaders dismantled a grass harvesting machine every year, took it up to the meadow on top in pieces, reassembled it, cut the grass, then brought everything down by pulley. Very ingenious.
There is a herd of bison, though we only saw one close up, an old male scratching his underside on a thick wooden post.
There are millions of prairie dogs, in and out of their burrows, unfortunately not too scared of humans.
We were also warned about the many rattlesnakes which inhabit this area, especially near the prairie dog towns, but despite our best efforts, we did not see one.
We saw quite a few big horn sheeps. These were wiped out or became extinct a long time ago, so were re introduced to the park, together with the bison, and are slowly making a come back. They all wear electronic collars for tracking purposes, which is a bit sad.
Still, they look quite chic.
An early evening, during which Captain Chef prepared a delish pork tenderloin on the Barbie. It had been marinating all day in one of the Pops’ concoctions, was cooked with some mega stuffed mushyrooms, again delectfully prepared by Marlipops, and was scrummy!!!
Wildlife watch today : Bison, Big horn sheeps, lots of deer, mule and prongyhorns, prairie dogs, all sorts of birds and a cat.
