HMS Beangle

After leaving Deadwood, we decided to head east instead of sticking around for the night. I saw that Badlands National Park had a free dry campground on the north portion of the park, so we decided to give a it go. It wasn’t quite boondocking as there were vault toilets, formal parking spots, and picnic tables, but without power and water, it was still pretty rustic. We got in toward the end of the afternoon and only had a few spots to choose from. We put almost all of our leveling blocks to good use, unhitched, got settled in, and made some dinner. I read that Sage Creek Campground usually only has a spot or two left most nights, and that was true for the two nights we were there.

We couldn’t beat the price, but what we didn’t count into our calculation was the dust. The Badlands have such interesting formations because the land is being worn away by wind and water at the rate of about an inch a year, and all that material has to go somewhere. Well, by the time we left, the truck and Beangle were both a uniform grey color. A super fine dust was in the bed of the truck and even inside the bins inside the bed of the truck. I figure we took approximately a year’s worth of erosion with us as we drove away. Oh well, let’s just call the cleanup at the next campsite a part of the price we paid.

After the first night’s dinner, we climbed the rise to the west of us to enjoy the sunset and get an overview of the area. If you zoom in, you can see the trailer and truck.

On the way back down we saw a bison munching above the campground. How cool is that?

Pretty cool. But definitely not as surprising as the bison that got a little extra friendly with some of the conveniently placed (and height’ed) posts next to some guys’ tents and motorcycles. It then proceeded to roam through the southern end of the campground. That big guy stopped right next to their picnic table, looked them dead in the face, and then kept on moving. They could have reached through the sun slats and touched him.

The next morning, when it came by for a second tryst and wouldn’t walk away from where their bikes were parked for over an hour, one of the men admitted that he’d been scared out of his mind the whole time. They’d acted so calm, you’d never have known!

The woman, below, was fun to talk with. We were cracking jokes the whole time. She might have been rethinking her tent choice, though. “I just bought that,” she called over to the bison.

The three red tents, below on the upper left, were a homeschooling family with 4 or 5 young kids. They got an unscheduled biology lesson. The dude making dinner didn’t even stop grilling. Ho hum. Bison in the hood.

On our second morning, we woke to an entire herd of mammas and babies grazing next to camp. That was quite a sight in the early dawn sunlight. By the time we were ready to pack up, they were nowhere to be seen. It’s shocking the way such a large number of animals can seem to just ‘disappear’ amongst the rolling hills out there. Top ten event so far.