Today was a magical day for several reasons... In the first place, the blast furnace heat from yesterday was gone at least at the start of the day. In the morning cool mist hung in the air and it was actually chilly enough that I had to put on my sweater...
The second reason is that I had a strong wind blowing at my back, so I rode faster than ever on this trip, almost 15 mph! And the third reason is that my path took me into Badlands National Park, and I had no idea what I was going to see. The first hint was some dark jagged rock-forms in the distance behind a Wall Drug sign.
Then all of a sudden I was looking over an endless fractal canyon of striped pyramids of eroding sand, giving way to a plain far below, colored yellow and orange from the sifted rocks.
All of the landscape east of the Missouri River had looked largely the same. Then the grasslands of the prairie had the look of close cropped hair over rippling muscles like you see with horses or African wolf hounds. And suddenly the Badlands looked like a fantasy landscape from ancient India or from the dinosaur time before humans. I had the feeling that, "oh, I've really ridden to a different part of the world."
Also, the farther west I travel the more people are impressed when I tell them where I've ridden from. I had a bunch of lovely discussions with bikers heading to Sturgis, which apparently will have 650,000 visitors this year! Each leather clad, bearded, heavily tattooed biker I talked to was sweeter than the one before.
Action shots:
Snapshot: 34 miles, starting at 7am and ending at 12noon, with 2.75 hours of actual riding:
Those badlands landscapes are just insane! It feels like a mystical land. I love that the bearded, leather-clad bikers are so sweet -Nof
The amazing journey is getting better and better. I have to google and read something about the badlands right now.