BADLANDS AND WALL DRUG
Today we visited Badlands National Park. By now you must realize that John and I are really into the natural wonders. But really I was a little non-plussed.
When you live in Utah near Bryce Canyon National Park, you have a certain natural wonder expectation. The Badlands, created by the same type of wind, rain and ice erosion, are a pale comparison. It seems that the cap rock in South Dakota is really incompetent and the entire pile erodes. In Bryce the cap rock is hard and the hoodoos erode under it making incredible shapes. There’s also the fact that the rock is more colorful.
We also took a look at the Big Pig Dig. This is an interesting ongoing excavation of an archaeotherium. We heard about this from a paleontologist friend.
Finally, we stopped at Wall Drug. This seems to be a place much like Pedro’s South of the Border in South Carolina. The schtick at Wall Drug is to offer free ice water and five cent coffee. They’ve been doing this since the thirties. And it has grown, and grown, and grown. Now it’s a destination in its own right.
