Badlands National Park…”Moon-scape on Earth”


As we entered the Badlands yesterday and drove through them again today, we had a sense of just how difficult it must be for any kind of life to exist.  And yet millions of years ago, prehistoric beasts roamed here.  For 12000 years the native people survived here.  Homesteaders struggled to hack a living, and many did not succeed.  When they tilled the land, the fierce winds blew the soil and the seeds away.  On good years the grasshoppers devoured their crops.  And always present to remind them of the harshness, the ever present deep ravines and ragged pinnacles…”moon-scape on earth”.

As you look around the Badlands what is written in the Park Brochure rings true.  “You may never walk on the moon, but you can certainly set foot on a terrain similar to it.”  Hopefully our pictures can tell part of that story.

Distance Traveled = 123 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Common Nighthawk, Flicker, Turkey Vulture, Meadowlark, Mountain Bluebird, Grackle, Robin, Big Horn Sheep, Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, Pronghorn.


Badlands...Moon-scape on Earth


Badlands/Prairie


Big Horn Sheep...some things do well in this environment!


Badlands


Moonscape


Yellow Mounds


Prairie Homestead...an original sod house 1909

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