Badlands National Park

My drive to Badlands National Park in South Dakota was mostly through corn fields, hours and hours and hours and hours through corn. Not the most beautiful or exciting of days in my car but I did get to pass by a few towns in Wyoming that had 10 people and 4 people. WHAT?!?! I know, I am as perplexed as you. I didn't even know that a "town" would consist of that tiny a population. I mean, REALLY Wyoming?! I was awe struck by this and it helped make my drive more lively, thinking of what it would be like to live in a town this small. I mean, what does one do? There is hardly any sign of civilization for hours in any direction, which is staggering. I would have loved to stop in these blink-and-you'll-miss-it places and knock on someone's door and just ask them so many questions, it's still fascinating to me. I also wish I had stopped on the highway and reversed back to take a photo of the town sign and population. But I swear, these towns exist, I saw them with my own eyes.

Badlands National Park is outside a small town of Interior, which has a population of about 48 people. I stayed at a ranch I found on airbandb, which was beautiful and sat atop a stunning hill where you could see for miles. It definitely felt like the wild west out here. The sunsets were absolutely stunning, especially having the setting sun peering over the Badlands landscape, something I'll never forget. Since there aren't many restaurants around and their grocery store consists of a tiny room with lackluster food choices, I ate most of my meals at Cedar Pass Lounge, a restaurant that was in the park. I had a traditional South Dakota Indian taco which was quite interesting and pretty delicious. During my one full day in the park, I decided to drive around from one end to the other, which doesn't take all that long. The landscape is so different from anywhere I've been. It was named the "Badlands" because nothing could really grow or survive on these prairie lands. What was fascinating to learn was during the dinosaur period there was a shallow sea that covered the Badlands. There are many fossils that are still being discovered today from that period and Badlands is considered to be one of the world's richest fossil areas. Badlands National Park was beautiful but I don't think I appreciated it as much as I could have. At this point in my trip I was just... tired and a bit lonely and it's hard to compete with having been to Glacier and Yellowstone in the previous weeks. And knowing that I had to get in my car the next day and drive through more barren landscape for 10+ hours wasn't the most appealing of thoughts. I know I must sound like a total travel douche for saying that but after you've been on the road for so long, it can start to get to you. I swear Badlands, it wasn't you, it was me. But now looking back, I can appreciate the vastness and the stunning and incredible National Park that was around me and feel grateful for having seen this part of the country.

Yellowstone & Grand Teton

Fellow readers, I'm so sorry to be extremely delayed with these last blog posts! It's hard to believe it's been a month since I've been back. I'll try to finish up these last remaining posts soon, thanks for sticking with me!

On my way from Kalispell, Montana to Driggs, Idaho I was mostly driving through wildfires. Being an east coaster, I've never experienced anything like this before. It was quite eerie driving for hundreds of miles and seeing vague outlines of mountains that I'm sure were beautiful, but all I could really make out was smoke. Driggs is a little town of about 1,200 people which at the time I thought was tiny but didn't realize how large it would be compared to where I drove through and stayed next. Driggs is surrounded by mountains which I unfortunately wasn't able to see do to the bad air quality. The sun and sky had a light pink look to it, which isn't normal. The only real positive from these wildfires was the spectacularly neon pink sunsets, have never seen anything quite like it before. Driggs is about 2 hours outside of Yellowstone and an hour outside of Grand Teton National Park. I wish I had cut my stay in Driggs short and stayed closer to Yellowstone because after driving as long as I had, being in the car for 2+ hours before I actually got to the park, was longer than I wanted. But all that aside, Yellowstone was stunning and I'm so glad I adventured for the day. Yellowstone reminded me a lot of Iceland and I loved seeing all the geysers, geothermal pools, hot springs, Old Faithful, bubbling mud/clay pits and all doing this while walking over the largest super-volcano on the continent, was really cool. The wildfire smoke just added to the other worldliness of this special place.

I went to Grand Teton two days, my first day was pretty smoky but quite atmospheric, which stopped me in my tracks. I enjoyed a nice and easy hike around one of the lakes which was beautiful and I can only imagine the greater beauty on clearer days. My second day in the park was slightly clearer and the highlight was getting to see many wild creatures, lots of bears and bison and the antler of a moose! Grand Teton is magnificent and it wasn't until I was driving out of Wyoming the following day when it was the most clear, where I was able to see the sprawling grandeur of these Rockies. I can't wait to come back to Wyoming and experience it all again!

Yellowstone National Park 

Grand Teton National Park