Badlands was different. It was the smallest Park we visited, and by far the least crowded – in fact, it felt largely abandoned, both by visitors and the NPS. The visitor facilities are small and relatively undeveloped, the trails are few, and even the park's signage looks like it was put up in 1950 and promptly forgotten.
We had intended to stay in a cabin, one of a cluster of cabins that form the only accomodations in the park aside from a small motel and a campground; but our changing arrival dates meant that we ended up in the motel instead. It was passable. (Not that we had any choice.) The motel was actually just outside the park entrance, and another mile or so was the small town of Interior, S.D., and another mile or so beyond that, the Pine Ridge Reservation. The NPS has a unique arrangement with the Reservation; park entrance fees are split 50/50 between them.
After touring what we could before the light failed, we headed to the restaurant at the Cedar Pass Lodge, the only place to eat in the Park, and ate standard fat-laden stodgy mid-American fare served to us by chunky Sioux youths. Chewing my greasy hamburger, I contemplated the sixties-era decor of the restaurant while the radio blared unintelligible thrash metal at the mostly middle-aged white patrons, and thought this is indeed a land of strange contrasts.
Posted by David Fleck at 08 August 2007 07:43 PM
See? We do read your posts.
The sunset looks good. And what kind of skull is that in the top picture?
Posted by: Jonathan on August 9, 2007 12:07 AM
Don't know about the skull. The sign doesn't – at least not any longer – contain any information about it. I'd guess it's some Cenozoic mammal or other.
Posted by: David Fleck on August 11, 2007 07:57 PM