Hazed and Cornfused – Badlands – Good Beer – August 23, 2020

Over the past week, we’ve noticed the skies have not been as blue as we expected them to be. Visibility in the wide open spaces of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming has been limited. Karen found out why we were experiencing the persistent brownish haze. Below is a screen shot of a satellite smoke forecast for the Mountain Time Zone region on August 21. It is staggering to see the impact of the California wildfires on the air quality of the mountain states!

 

The trip odometer on the car shows we’ve traveled 2000 miles so far – and we’re still in the Mountain Time Zone. Today, we started east in earnest.

First stop was the Badlands National Park. We took the Highway 240 scenic loop through the northern unit of the park. Just at the Pinnacles Entrance to the park, we came upon a prairie dog community, a herd of bison, and some antelope.

The Badlands is set in the middle of miles of prairie grasslands. You can only imagine what early travelers must have thought when they came upon the chasms, peaks and valleys that suddenly appear. The NPS literature says that a shallow sea covered the Great Plains millions of years ago. When the climate changed and tectonic plates crunched together, the rising landmass drained the sea. Wind and rain started eroding the land, creating the rock formations (and exposing fossils from ancient sea creatures) we see today.

 

Toadstool Rock at Norbeck Pass (below)

 

Back on the I-90, we drove about 250 miles through cornfields until we reached Sioux Falls, SD. At about the halfway point, we crossed the Missouri River near Chamberlain, SD. This is where we stopped at a rest area featuring a 2016 stainless steel sculpture entitled, Dignity, which celebrates the Lakota and Dakota people, as well as other Native cultures of South Dakota.

 

Once we got east of the Missouri River, the sky started to turn blue, and the landscape looked greener. We’re in the Central Time Zone now, and we’ve left behind the arid West.

 

It was a long and thirsty drive, so we stopped at the Granite City Brewery in Sioux Falls for an early dinner and called it a day.

 

Next: La Crosse, WI