The Badlands - South Dakota
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is a 250,000 acre stretch of prairie that holds a profusion of buttes, eroded spires and hoodoos, the welcoming committee of bighorn sheep didn't charge and neither did the National Park Service as I had arrived too late in the day to make the $15 payment, a sign at the gate said to stop at the visitor centre to pay but it too was closed. I guess there are some perks to being out of season.
To view the park I took the highway (US-240) loop road that leaves I-90 in the south-west corner of South Dakota and makes a 40 mile loop back to I-90
US-240 is a wonderfully scenic highway that twists and turns through the park delivering spectacular views one after the other in a constant bombardment of the senses. Similar to driving in the Rockies the bighorn sheep do tend to stand around on the road so care is needed, particularly just around the corner which seems to be their favourite place.
The scenery changes from sharp pinnacles of eroded sedimentary rocks to smooth round tops scorched with colour from geothermal events dating back millennia.
You need hardly leave the road for more than a few hundred feet either side to see some of the parks most spectacular scenery and on a number of occasions you drive right through it
Obviously it would be foolish not to take advantage of some of the short walks that are mapped from roadside pullouts so you can get close to some of the spires and razor like ridges that occur everywhere along the 40 mile highway.
Though I will leave the text at that I have added more images from the Badlands National Park in a gallery below, click any of the smaller images to begin a scroll through gallery.