Kate put together a plan to do everything within about 100 miles, except John ruined her plan by pointing out that her route bypassed most of the Badlands National Park. The revised plan skipped the extra grasslands visitor center, and passed through the badlands. This plan involved going to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Park for a cancel stamp, Badlands Ranch Store to feed Prairie Dogs, Ben Reifel Visitor Center in the badlands for a cancel stamp, and the National Grasslands Visitor Center in Wall for a cancel stamp. The stop at Dairy Queen in Wall, SD was a bribe for John.

Timing was an issue because the temperature was projected to reach 95 degrees at the hottest point of the day. If the power went out, it could be dangerous for the cats. The final plan was to get up a 6:30 am to get to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center by opening time around 8:00 am. We would start by driving the Wildlife Loop. The end of the loop is Wall, SD, so we would stop there at the National Grasslands Visitor Center and Dairy Queen. Since the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center opened later, we would stop at that and the Prairie Dogs on the way home.

Kate’s thought was that we would not need to spend a lot of time driving through Badlands National Park because it would be uninteresting. It turned out to be far more beautiful and interesting than she anticipated. Before we even got to the visitor center, we started seeing the beauty of the badlands in the distance.

Whatever the climate in the badlands, it appears to be perfect for the Common Sunflower. These miniature Sunflowers were everywhere.

Here is a little experiment with aperture and focus. Can you see the difference in the pictures?

The ones on the left have the aperture set to f/5.6 and the ones are the right are f/32. The top ones are focused on the cliff, and the bottom ones are focused on the flowers. In the right hand images, it is hard to tell whether the focus is on the flowers or the cliff because the depth of field is very large and there is some diffraction blur.

Also, John dressed to match the sunflowers, except for the pants. Not many sunflowers have plaid pants. Kate did not blend in here.

They also have cactus here; it looks like it might be a prickly pear.

Public Service Announcement: When taking pictures, do not squat on the cactus.

Shortly into the park, the was a scenic spot where you could get close to and walk onto the badlands formations, at your own risk. (There was a prominent rattlesnake warning sign.) Plenty of people ran up the side of the little cliffs to get pictures on the formations, but we did not. There was a boardwalk that went around the back of the formation, and there were little birds running up and down the front of the formation.

The Merlin App claimed that these were Loggerhead Shrike, but the photograph does not match the bird. We are not sure whether this is a different bird, a juvenile, or a female.

At this stop, there were also several informational signs about the badlands.

The boardwalk went around behind the formations to reveal a dramatic and inhospitable landscape. Like the sign says, it looks a little like the moon.

There was even an alien taking selfies on this moon. No wait, there are two of them! Call NASA, it might be an invasion.

Kate stood next to one of the small formations to show how tall they are.

Here is a wide panorama of the back of the formation. The high resolution version is here, but you will need to go back to this page.

And Common Sunflowers everywhere, of course. Why wouldn’t you expect sunflowers in the badlands?

These are Woolly Verbena. No idea what that means, but they were pretty.

The front side of the formation had some named areas. Either they were not very well marked, or we did not walk far enough. We are guessing that this is Window, but we were right next to Door and have no idea what it was.

Even the badlands have Pigeons. Maybe this is where they send the bad Pigeons?

Across the street from the scenic spot was a row of jagged spires with red stripes. With the sky, it made for a fantastic view.

The next stop was the visitor center. Kate got her cancel stamps while John wandered the building. The center has a good education area with information about fossils and Black-footed Ferrets. The Black-footed Ferrets were believed to be extinct, until a small population was found in the wild. The badlands now has one of the only self sustaining populations of the endangered Black-footed ferrets in the wild. There are about 80 ferrets resident in Conata Basin. We wanted to see the ferrets, but we verified that spot-lighting animals is not legal in the badlands. We were not going to see many nocturnal ferrets without lights. We did find out that Burrowing Owls are out and about, so we planned to look for them. We also learned that, 28 to 26 millions years ago, a volcano 5 to 6 times larger than Yellowstone erupted in the Nevada/Utah area and dropped 30 feet of ash in the badlands.

The area is also known for fossils, and the visitor center has an active fossil recovery lab. Hikers can report fossils to be recovered and have their picture posted on the wall of fossil finders. About a decade ago, a seven year old girl reported a Nimravid skull that was recovered. In another case, a report of a pig-like fossil ended up being a large deposit that took more than a decade to recover.

The visitor center is in a grassy valley, but it does have a view of the badlands across the street. The campground with electric hookups is located here, but the roads are pretty terrible. We would not want to tow a camper on the wildlife loop.

Random places on the side of the road were beautiful, in the badlands way.

The next scenic area had a long view into the badlands from a plateau. There were various ledges that people had worn down from walking out to take pictures. Kate went out on one to get her picture taken, but she had to crawl back because she was afraid she was going to get blown off the side. If she went over the edge, she might be hard to find. That shirt was pretty good camouflage.

John was pretty sure he was heavy enough that there was little to no chance that he would get blown off the side, but if he did, it was a long way down.

Shortly after the Prairie Dog Towns started appearing in the distance, we ran across one close to the road. John saw a bird on a leaning fence pole, and Kate decided to pull over. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a Burrowing Owl.

Creeping a little closer.

Every time John came a little closer, he got the stink-eye from the owl. Owls can give you the stink-eye anywhere in 270 degrees.

The owl was very skittish. Once John stepped off the road, the owl hopped off the post and prepared to dive into its burrow. John was still 100 feet or more away.

After a short pause, it flew off somewhere else.

At the next stop, we saw a Ferruginous Hawk.

Next, we came up to the Yellow Mounds area, which has, you guessed it, yellow mounds.

We passed by the Sage Creek Rim Road, even though it should have a lot of animals, because it was getting later and hotter. It was about 88 degrees and approaching noon. On the way out of the park, we saw a Mountain Bluebird.

From here, we headed to Wall, SD to the National Grasslands Visitor Center. The visitor center was not very large, but it had a video about the Black-footed Ferrets and some stuffed mounted animals. Kate got her cancel stamp, and we learned that the park service has blinds set up for you to sit in to watch the Grouse. Next was Dairy Queen and on to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site had one of the Peacekeeper vehicles just outside the entrance. If the people driving this told you to pull over, they would not need to ask twice.

The site has a large informational display area, including the infamous “Duck and Cover” commercial for protecting yourself from a nuclear strike. Apparently, the government believed school desks were indestructible. Sadly, we learned that their website had not been updated, so the construction was actually completed last year. We could have reserved tickets for a tour earlier this year, but now they are sold out for the year. That will teach us to believe their notices.

One of the most amusing aspects of the building was the bathroom. Instead of signs about washing your hands, it had 30 second minuteman missile signs.

Who would have guessed that our Minuteman Missiles were basically giant nuclear skunks? Kate will put up more on the Minuteman site in a separate post.

The badlands are larger than we realized, more interesting than we realized, and there is more to do in the area than we realized. We need to come back in one of the shoulder seasons, so it is less hot and busy.