T R A V E L   L O G tj|ca|st
T R A V E L   L O G
tj|ca|st

T H E   B A D L A N D S   -   D A Y   # 1

Sunday August 22, 2004

The drive to the Badland's Northern Entrance is rather flat. Open prairie to be exact. I was expecting to see the typical badlands geography from the get-go. You know, the painted hills and such.

After entering the park I soon encounter a wide, gravel side-road that forks off to the west from the main paved road. Earlier during my trip planning I had spied this gravel road as a possible biking venue. The paved road looks too dangerous to bike since there's no shoulder to speak of and the road itself has many blind twists and turns as per my GPS maps. The gravel road seems like a better option.

And to my great pleasure, all the pictures I have ever seem of the Badlands finally came to life, I am finally standing in the Badlands, taking in its incredible, otherworldly vista.

I park the van then make preparations for my bike ride. While preparing, from out of nowhere, a park ranger pulls up in her truck, gets out, then tells me I can only ride on the dirt road. "Hey!" I think, "Nice to meet you too!" Cripes. I tell her that's my intention but for some reason she thinks I'm not telling the truth. She then tells me she's warning me first because she doesn't want to write me a ticket. Geeze, she must be having a bad day? Hopefully her next mission isn't to find some poor, innocent prairie dog to kick around. Perhaps she is upset because she's on her way to manditory public etiquette training as punishment for not being nice to the park's visitors?


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