Monday May 22, 2023 - Badlands SD to Yankton SD

 

Another National Park day. Sage Creek campground was a good spot last night. No buffalo sleeping in the campground but the prairie dogs were up and at it. A group of 4 pulled in next to us at 3:30 this morning. They were sleeping away in their tent this morning so I can only assume a cross country road trip. A few people were already up and gone but most were still here.

Yesterday we snuck in a back entrance of the park on dirt roads just north of the park. So today we continue on the dirt road which is on top of the plateau. Pretty good washboard road so it gave the van a good break in (all those fasteners). Nothing is coming loose by the way so kudos to Dave & Matt Vans for the good build.

Finally we hit the paved park road and started to see the Badlands vistas as well as more buffalo and prairie dogs. Another situation where the first 20 photos you take are amazing and then you reach sensory overload. There was some brilliant green grass growing between the eroded mud which added to the red layers, making for some pretty nice views. The skies are still smoky from the Alberta fires. Every day we keep thinking about a camera with a good zoom lens…

Stopped at the visitor center and they had a great display there. The prairie dogs are a huge piece of the park ecosystem since they are food for the hawks, ferrets, and coyotes. Everything got out of balance when the cattle grazers tried to eradicate them (broken cow legs down the holes I suspect) but they have things in balance now.  The ferrets are on their way to being restored since they found some up in Wyoming  that they’d thought were extinct.

We left Badlands National Park thinking we kind of ran out of national parks and we have a long way to get back to Vermont in 10 days or less, so we’d better think about getting some miles in. Our next goal is the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation near Detroit so we told Google Maps to get us there (in 3 or 4 days) and ended up on RT 44 across South Dakota. Lost an hour due to the time zone somewhere in central South Dakota. Deb found a great campsite at Lewis and Clark State Park near Yankton. This is a beautiful state park right on a reservoir on the Missouri River, complete with hot showers. So sitting watching the birds zing back and forth skimming the water while the sun disappears through the haze (still smoke?). Leftovers for dinner, a walk, then bed.

odo = 8885