The whole purpose of this trip was to go to the Badlands. Ever since I was on the Vt. Nature Conservancy Board I have wanted to go there. It is an area that the Nature Conservancy has helped to preserve, and it has always fascinated me.

In my mind Badlands meant prairie, but little did I expect the volcanic stone that formed craters in the prairie lands. Coming upon craters etched deep into the prairie land, they created a sub terrain landscape. If a film maker wanted to use this area for filming a futuristic film, they could find no better place. With valleys made of volcanic rock, they stand out like white bleached pyramids or castle-like shapes. Trees crowd together in what seems like the only place water may be found. They are a good shelter for the animals and birds from the extreme heat.

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Looking in the distance a long horn sheep clings to a crevice, thousands of feet off the canyon floor. It never moves, just stares ahead. I wonder how it will ever get down or how it ever got there. Another sheep lies in a crevice in the baking sun. Later on, I discovered one walking on the side of the road minding its own business. I stopped to take a picture and suddenly there were cars pulling up from nowhere. The sheep tossed his horns, crossed the road, jumped up on a steep rock, then pulled himself up to the top, stood proud as if to say; “Hello, My Kingdom.” He sauntered off the cliff like he was on flat ground, wagged his behind at us and strolled away into the distance.

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Have you ever played “Whack-A-Doo?” That game must have come from watching Prairie Dogs. I laughed so hard to see these creatures popping up and down. It looked like the same Prairie Dog was popping up all over the field. A bit of comic relief.

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How does color present itself is an interesting question? In the Fall in New England color bombards us from everywhere and we love seeing the leaves turn. But what about color in a landscape that is bleached? How the light reflects off these mounds, that have erupted from the earth, is important to seeing the color in this landscape. One minute it is white and grey with occasional green and yellow from the trees, flowers and wheat. Then you turn a corner, the light changes, and a series of large mounds show their layers of reds, yellows, dark grey and white. The color is so subtle you are not sure you are seeing it. But as you drive along this color becomes just as intense as the Fall leaves.

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My dream was fulfilled, I got to see the Badlands. So diverse, from a distance it looks like a large city with the large eruptions, then as you get close up you see acres of flat prairie land with valleys of sandstone eruptions. What a marvel.

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The Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore were just as interesting and are quite the contrast to the Badlands. Where the Badlands are mostly flat prairie land with underground and aboveground  interruptions pushing their way through the earth, the Black Hills take on the look of a forest with winding roads, pines, birches, lakes and green wherever you look. Approaching Mt. Rushmore is when you see the large granite eruptions rising majestically out of the forest. Impressive and breathtaking are words that come to mind.

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The four Presidents loom over the landscape looking not as us, ( the people who have come to see this phenomenon), but to the future. The Presidents are full of life; the eyes reflect light and the tilt of their heads show their personalities. I was awed by this sculptural feat. I cannot imagine how they chose the rocks to sculpt, how they were so precise in their blasting of areas, how they were able to scale the faces from the models and have them be precise. Watching the videos of the men working, hanging in Bozeman chairs while drilling was breath taking. This was not on my list of “must see”, but since we were here I wanted to go. I cannot imagine missing this in my life time. As much as we joke about adding Trump, as much as it seems so insignificant to the generations who were not involved in the conception, it is an achievement that deserves to be one of those wonders of the world.

These simple words tell it all:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!

Truly we live in an amazing country, we should put aside our differences and come together to preserve what is so unique about us. Our people are as diverse as our landscape. We need to appreciate all of it. As Mr. Crisp, a one-time legislator and farmer from South Dakota told us over a chat in a parking lot at The Bad Lands… out here you have to be Republican. But you know what, after talking to him, I’d vote for him Republican or Democrat, he was a good guy.