There are no words. No seriously. I'll put up pictures and you can watch the videos but neither will even come close to the sheer beauty of this 70 mile stretch of land. I was in awe as we rounded a bend on route 90 west and suddenly what had been flat for lord knows how long turned into one of the most picturesque landscapes I have ever witnessed. There are mountains, yes, but they aren't what comes to mind when the word is spoken. To give you an idea of what I mean when I say that I was and am completely caught up in the atmosphere here Alex and I decided to go hiking on a trail that was supposed to take about an hour to complete. In all honesty in terms of straight speed I probably could have done it in about twenty minutes, but we stayed on that trail for a good three hours. The views were spectacular and the formations were exactly what I like when I want to play. I make no exagerations when I say that I was in full play mode that whole time. It was awesome. The most freeing part of it for me was me being my usual self. The trail we were on led through a canyon, and while canyons are fun and it was gorgeous I obviously had to kick it up a notch and find something dangerous, exhilerating, entertaining or any combination of synonyms to those wondeful words. This started with mild climbs off the beaten path, and slightly larger than safe jumps from ledge to ledge, but my aspirations were greater still. The end result was my scouting a route to the top of he canyon, by no means an easy venture with only one route that I was able to find, and the discovery of a pack of bighorn sheep(otherwise known as mountain goats) at the top that I can pretty much guarentee that no one else saw. The coolest thing with that was when they decided our presence was not to their liking and RAN down the side of the sheer cliff I had just spent an hour trying to get up, across the canyon/ravine and straight back up the other side which was equally steep. Nature win.
So yeah we're now in our tent sheltering from the rain which held off all day and I'm completely content and happy with how this day turned out. Tomorrow is mount rushmore and a drive to yellowstone where we'll be spending the following two days. I fully expect my awe and amazement to be topped again, as I said before it's only day 3, and there are so many things we have yet to do.
Two p.s.'s; one is that buffalo burgers are delicious. The other is that my computer is almost completely broken which means uploading pictures may or may not happen in a timely fashion so sorry about that :( who knows I might cave to alex's suggestion that we stop at an apple and pick me up a new piece of hardware...
Location:Badlands south Dakota
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