Entering the badlands

Heading east out of Rapid City toward the Badlands, we crossed 75 miles of flat, crusty rangeland. The sun was high enough to eliminate all shadows, and the highway road crews we passed were hidden until the last moment by silver mirages. The intensity of the baked landscape was broken only once in two hours when we drove across the Cheyenne River floodplain lined with cottonwood trees. Finally, a parking lot filled with RVs and several families having lunches under small wooden shelters signaled that we had arrived in Badlands National Park.