Day 5: I can see for miles and miles.

I can see for miles and miles...

The Badlands, as beautiful as they are difficult. 

This was below ground level.  

Ranger Larry!

In our first full day in the Badlands, we said a big yes to the Ranger programs. We went to 4 of them and they were fantastic,although I think Ranger Larry, who presented most of them was getting annoyed with the children shouting out the answers they learned from him earlier by the end. There is this program called the teacher ranger
teacher program and participants in this program present information about the park throughout the day, it was fantastic.

Hanging out on the Buttes, the ravine there is where the other photo was taken. 

We started off at the Door hike and the geology program. The amazing thing about the Badlands is the buttes look like giant drip castles, and its almost what they are. Millions of years ago, the Badlands were under water, much of the landscape and geology was shaped at this time. Because of the composition of the Badlands, they erode at a very fast rate, revealing many fossils and other neat things as the buttes wash away. From the geology hike, we brought the kids to the junior ranger program, where they learned about the tribes that lived around the area and the landscape then collected patches and junior ranger pins. After that program, we ate lunch on the road and drove around the park until we came back to the fossil program, which gave each of us a desire to find a fossil and fill out the official form.

Climbing a ladder up buttes in the Notch trail.

Hiking is a big activity for our family and we had selected the Notch hike. Most of the hikes in the Badlands were well under a mile round trip, which seemed easy to us, so we felt confident picking this mile and a half "moderate to strenuous" hike. A mile and a half is something we would normally think nothing of, but we've never hiked the Badlands slippery surface in 100+ degree weather, no trees anywhere. We made it most of the way, up a tall trecheous ladder, but even we find some situations dangerous and right near the end a slippery ledge with a 20 foot drop turned us back.

Sod house.

Prairie dog at the sod house.

Stage coach at Cowboy Corner.  

Although the hiking was not as long as we are used to, we were still exhausted and fried and headed to check out the Praire House, a sod house exhibit toward the highway. The stories of the settlers who came here is pretty amazing and it was neat to see the kind of house they had lived in. I can't imagine dealing with the summers or winters in those primative dwellings. The kids got to chase after prarie dogs and feed goats and sheep grass.

Billy goats on the buttes, close up of other photo.

We journeyed back to Interior in the hopes of catching the grocery open to find something to make for dinner. While the grocery was open, I can't imagine finding much for dinner there. We did find popsicles for the kids and beer at Cowboy Corner for us. We wearily went back to the visitor center to the praise ranger program. As we learned about prarie grasses and chromobiotic soil, in the distance we watched lightening, thunder, and rain hit. Amazing. Rangers Larry cut the talk short to be on the safe side, but not before we found a fossilized bone! We hurried back to the center to proudly fill out our fossil report form and then went back to dinner at the restaurant.

Upper right corner.

After dinner, we climbed the buttes to watch the sunset, with the boys scrambling up and down in terrifying ways, Josh and Ellie trying to keep up and me just holding my breath. The Fat Tire beer was delicious after the kids went to bed and the sleep was too.

Sunset on the buttes.