The Badlands: wow!

Since this was another day with a time zone change I used the extra hour to visit the Spam Museum in Austin, MN, as Shirley had suggested. It was not a "wow!" since a guide I hadn't requested, even older than me, kept telling me reverentially about George Hormel, his forebears and descendants; Austin is still the corporate headquarters. There were a lot of interactive exhibits that were getting hoots of laughter from visitors, a lot of cans of you-know-what, and a lot of campy humor about the food that GIs in both World Wars loved to hate (but that we loved as kids). There's even a spam restaurant across the street. But my favorite photo is of an amusing door I didn't open.

I spent the next 7 1/2 hours (including breaks) charging west on I-90. In western Minnesota I had to wonder what kids in the town of Kiester had to endure from kids in other towns, especially during the Reagan years when we heard the word so often.

The flat Minnesota farmlands with isolated stands of trees surrounding farmyards and as windbreaks became increasingly treeless, rolling grasslands in South Dakota, still intensely green. After crossing the wide Missouri (a man-made lake at that point; the photo shows one of three bridges visible from a scenic overlook) the hills became more pronounced and lovely. Pity they were defaced by thousands of billboards, including a few reflecting the state's extreme politics ("protect life," "wear fur") and many for schlocky-sounding tourist traps.

About 5:15 Mountain Time I entered the Badlands National Park just south of I-90 and found my way through major road resurfacing work to my cabin at the Cedar Pass Lodge five miles in, near the park's south exit. Here's Penny in front of my home for the next two days - very cozy with full bath, two double beds, and air conditioning if I can't sleep in the somewhat muggy 60-degree weather. No grounded outlets to I hope my computer's batteries last two days. And I'm glad it isn't winter - that saggy ridgepole doesn't look strong enough for a big load of snow.

Here's an example of the "wow!" I took this from beside my cabin when a spate of rain had passed and the sun came out again. The Badlands I've seen so far are a sort of inverted Grand Canyon in miniature, with these jaggedly eroded, stratified hills rising above the plain - like a mountain range if they weren't relatively small. Tomorrow I'll take a bunch of 2-hour hikes in different areas of the park with varying terrain, and will share the best photos with you.