Badlands Redux and Origin of the Buffalo

Today we started out by braving the Badlands again. We learned that, millions of years ago, there was an ocean covering SD. Over time, the Black Hills and Rocky Mountains kept rising, and the ocean was shoved out of the way. This left the Badlands, which used to be under the ocean, uncovered. So, today, we walked on the ocean floor. It's an ocean floor that feels rather muddy at the bottom. In fact, Sedwick was somewhat worried that yesterday's rain would have washed the Badlands away. As you can see from these shots, though, the Badlands survived the rain (although they could be just a bit shorter than they were yesterday, much like Nancy after her accident).


In the more prairie-esque portions of the Badlands, we found some more prairie dogs. Badland prairie dogs seem to be a little more communal than the more individualistic TRNP prairie dogs. As you can see from these pictures, two seem to be almost holding hands, and another group seems to be having a town meeting. Our animals enjoyed the prairie parts of the Badlands as well. (They were nervous in the other parts of the Badlands, and refused to come out of the car, since there are many signs around warning to beware of rattlesnake.) Other wildlife we spotted on our way through the badlands were birds, a rabbit, and some bison (they seem to be all over this part of the country). Check out the collage below to see the cool bird we saw (we will have to determine what kind of bird it is), to see the baby bunny, the prairie dogs, and the bison that roam Badlands National Park. They don't look much different from the bison at Grand Teton or Yellowstone.



At lunch we learned that, among other requirements of the Badlands (such as being ware of rattlesnakes), there's an intriguing dictum decreeing that one should not live in trashcans. Perhaps it was just the combination of the hot sun and our as yet incompletely digested lunch, but we were a bit amused by the sign (or at least I was), so it got immortalized by the camera.

Once we'd finished with the Badlands, we headed to Wind Cave, another national park in SD. This park, as we learned on our tour that was guided by a *much* more informed, interesting, and multitonal guide than Michele and my tour of Ice Cave was, used to be owned by a mining company. Once the company discovered there was nothing to be mined from it (other than a salamander who lives at the bottom of the first set of stairs, there's nothing living - apart from the tourists - in the cave), the son of the family that was managing the property for the mining company began exploring the cave. He entered through the tiny hole you can see in the cave pictures. He had nothing to light his way but a candle in a tin can. Our knowledgeable guide demonstrated this for us, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to crawl through a cave with a candle. Granted, there's not really anything that could be set on fire, but it'd be incredibly hard to see - especially if a wind happened to come through from inside Wind Cave (which, given the name, seems like it'd be a decent possibilty). While in the cave (which was, happily, lighted with more than a candle), we saw what was called popcorn (little popcorn kernaly looking things) on the walls and ceilings, as well as box work. Box work is a remnant of how easy it is to get rid of limestone. Once upon a time, there were cracks in the limestone that got filled by calcitrate. Over time, the limestone got washed away, and the calcitrate was left - to create eery and spooky designs on the roof of the cave. Just about all (95%) of the box work in the world is in the cave we saw at Wind Cave. Another 1% is in a different cave in the park. Our guide wasn't sure where the other 4% had gotten to.



After leaving the cave (which was much easier than arriving, thanks to an elevator -- that kid who'd explored with a candle must have been happy when he discovered that), we headed to dinner in Hot Springs. Two of the town's many attractions are a blue buffalo and a waterfall, which you can see pictures of here.