Today, we go to the Badlands! A bit over an hour to get there, but once there, some fascinating geology. We poked around a few places, looked over some overlooks – the terrain is all (almost! You’ll see later) pretty similar, and I got some shots, like these. Here’s a sweeping view:

This was close to where we came in, on the North and East end of the park.

How about another?

Pretty cool, huh? What next?

Lunch! That sounds good before we continue! There is a place called Badlands Lodge, and they have a restaurant, so we decided to try some of the local fare. Buffalo burgers! Yup, had to try that. They taste just like chicken! No, not really. But it DOES taste a lot like beef, which should be no surprise. Mighty tasty, and we had a good waitress with a sense of humor.

We decided the next thing to do was to hike into the Badlands, so we put on our Camelbacks and trekked off into the heat. We started our hike at noon, and according to Weatherbug, it was 101F – didn’t feel like it, but it was pretty warm. We did a five mile hike (two out, two back, and about another mile on various areas at the beginning and at the far end). Here is the trail head where we started:

Yes, we really are going to go out into that!

Here is another shot along the way:

And another, this one with The Bear out front, leading the pack:

This is almost back to the beginning:

And here’s a shot of me, two cameras, of course! Had to have my 28-300 on the full-frame, and then my fisheye for those sweeping panoramas:

Yes, we went WAaaay back out there, then returned. Nice hike!

Oh, yeah – at the far end, these two guys showed up. Look like deer, but with curved horns like a ram:

Here’s a closeup of one of them:

Ok, onward!

Next, we get to some REALLY interestingly colored hills:

And this one:

Unfortunately, it’s hard to do justice to a panorama here, but if you click on the pano, it will blow it up for you, then you can easily return with the back button.