South Dakota Road Trip - Badlands National Park

Sunday morning was an earlier morning for us. We had tried our best to sleep during crazy winds that were blowing our tent over. Seriously we had have one person in the tent at all times while we packed everything else away in my Rav4. If not, the tent would have blown away at a speed that neither one of us could run. This all happend around 5:30 am. We tried our best to locate a coffee shop to help wake us up, but every coffee shop was still closed.

With little sleep, being wind blown and no coffee we made our way to Badlands National Park. There was a semi-storm going by which canceled our plans for any hiking we had planned. However we stopped at ever viewpoint to soak in as much of the view as we could before the wind or the cold took over.

The above photo is of one of the frist viewpoint areas. This place was lovely. After we walked around a bit we continued down the road only to be stopped by some Big Horned Sheep and their little kids playing about. Since I was driving I gave Andy my camera and let him snap away at the big horned sheep.

Needless to say Badlands National Park is beautiful. I can't imagen how much better our photos and the park would look like if we were there during a sunny blue sky day. There isn't much to do in the park except for one 10 mile hike. I'd totally go back and take the hike, but not when it is so windy. For your viewing pleasure I have keep the photos as full size and only adjusted lighting and size in photoshop.

Enjoy!