[Christina] Day 9: The Glory of the Dakotas

After waiting for the tent to dry off after the previous night's thunderstorm [sidebar - it was mostly dry, and the nice warm sun took care of residual drops while we packed everything else up], we packed up and explored Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  How wonderful to have established a national park to commemorate the landscape which had shaped Theodore Roosevelt in his youth.  The park had beautiful badlands topography and the odd bison here and there.

What was really exciting, however, was the prairie dog town.

The prairie dogs were adorable, scrambling around and tussling and talking to each other.

We then drove south to Mount Rushmore. [Elizabeth sidebar: this was something I thought would be kind of fun, since we were in the area and, ya know, why not?]  This giant overpriced kitschy waste of time with actually saved us a great deal of grief.  We were standing in the parking garage near the top of the mountain, annoyed at having to pay $11 for parking and that Elizabeth's National Parks pass didn't cover it, when we noticed a particularly large and menacing thundercloud not particularly far off in the distance.

"Did you see lightning?"  I asked.

"That thing looks...purple," Elizabeth said.

We prioritized figuring out the radio on Elizabeth's ipod.  We tuned it to NPR, which was suddenly interrupted by one of those OMG YER ALL GONNA DIE emergency announcements from the National Weather Service.  We caught the names of a few towns [including where we were headed next], but it was too staticky to make out the bulk of the message.  Elizabeth's phone sighed and gave up when we tried to look up the information ourselves. [Elizabeth sidebar: this was my one concern when my radio gave up: how would we get weather warnings if we needed them? I discovered the radio feature on my ipod a while back, and it was definitely a useful discovery...]

Somewhat desperate, I asked the friend I'd been texting back and forth with the whole trip if he could please look up the National Weather Service warning for the area we were in and e-mail it to Elizabeth.  It was a really good thing we did.  Those parks to the south of us that we were going to visit next?  Fifty mile an hour winds and hail one inch in diameter.  OH HECK NO.  North was a great direction!  Let's go there!

I thanked our friend profusely.  "Protect the wonder Prius!" he replied. [Elizabeth sidebar: 1-inch hail would make me very sad. The car has been a staunch ally of mine for nearly 7 years, and I would like to keep it for many, many more. I'm all for avoiding 1" hail]

Early that evening, we rolled into Badlands National Park.  They still had sites open at one particular campground, so we set off down the long dirt road [Elizabeth sidebar: I *hate* dirt roads] to the campground, admiring the sweeping views of the badlands.  It was there that we encountered the worst and the best traffic ever.

 The worst part?  We sat in the same spot for at least ten or fifteen minutes, unable to move.

The best part?  It was because we were surrounded by a herd of bison!

They were magnificent, eating grass and tussling with each other and taking dust baths and staring off into space thinking important bison thoughts.  [Elizabeth sidebar: They also came to the car and had staring contests with me, and I carefully said "no, not driving anywhere... nope... I'll wait for you..."] They were adorable and terrifying.

Once we got to the campground, we shared a table with a couple who were doing practically the exact same trip as us, but in reverse.  We traded helpful tips and called it a night.