After surviving the stormy night in our tent, we awoke in our campground surrounded by the jagged rock formations (buttes) of Badlands. What a gorgeous place to camp.
We spent this whole day in Badlands doing almost all of the hiking trails. The buttes are all formed from years and years of erosion from water and wind – constantly changing and leaving history of the past.
The Window trail offered a natural window in the Badlands wall to view a canyon of buttes.
On the Door trail, we walked out onto the rocks to get a panoramic view surrounded by them.
At Notch trail, we meandered through a canyon and climbed a log ladder to get a dramatic view of the White River Valley. This hike was pretty strenuous but fun as well.
Saddle Pass trail was another tougher hike but we got to climb up a butte way up high. This is where we saw a rattlesnake coiled up on the side as well.
Badlands actually contains one of the largest collections of mammal fossils in the world, and we got to learn about some during a ranger talk and walk through the Fossil Exhibit trail.
Our last hike was the Medicine Root loop and Castle trail through the grass plains and near the end, we saw a bighorn sheep and a pack of pronghorn antelopes!
Out of all the places we went to during this road trip, Badlands was my favorite. There weren’t that many people there and it was really fun to hike and climb buttes everywhere in the park. Plus, just absolutely breathtaking views and different landscapes all around.
This day, we went from North Dakota to South Dakota.
Along the way, the roads winded through much of the Black Hills, which made for an awesome backdrop.
We also ran into a ton of traffic as we passed through the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. There were all kinds of motorcycles everywhere and lots of people in leather and chaps. We actually saw a lot of motorcyclists during a majority of the road trip, so I guess it’s just a big northern-midwest thing to do?
Our first stop was Mount Rushmore, which was cool to see. Four presidents who had profound impacts on our nation: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were prominently carved into the mountain.
There wasn’t much in the area outside of the monument and a small museum, so we charged forward to the next destination, Crazy Horse Memorial.
This is the world’s largest mountain carving and honors Native American culture. They broke ground on the carving in 1948 and it is still in progress. As you can see from the 1/34th scale model (left) and unfinished mountain carving (right), there’s much work to be done.
We lost cell reception and data for a majority of the trip when we were in the middle of the country, and had to rely on physical maps a few times. This was funny because in this day and age, Brian and I have rarely had to read a map to find directions. It was good brain training to get back to these roots.
And of course: new day, new national park.
It was really cool driving into Badlands National Park because we could see the terrain instantly change to the famous jagged rock formations (buttes) and vast plains.
The weather was quite cloudy and periodically rainy, showing some epic sunlight and cloud combinations.
When we finally got to the park entrance, it started storming extremely hard. After picking out a campsite at Cedar Pass campground, we waited out the storm to set up our tent. As the rain subsided though, we got to see a beautiful sunset and clear end-to-end rainbows that stretched from ground to way up in the sky to back to the ground. It was majestic.
Later before bed, we saw lots of lighting blistering the sky behind giant clouds. That night’s sleep was rough, as winds gusted to 25 mph and rain poured down. It felt like our tent was about to collapse a few times.
Woke up in Fargo and took off towards western North Dakota.
Along the way, we made some quick stops at the Enchanted Highway to see some giant metal structures, and at the Painted Canyon visitor center, overlooking vast rock formations that looked as if they had colorful chalks sprinkled all over them.
Once we got to Theodore Roosevelt National Park around midday, we proceeded to do the 36-mile scenic drive in the South Unit of the park.
This national park area is where Theodore Roosevelt developed much of the conservationist mindset that he brought to his US presidency.
There were a lot of pullouts along the drive for trails and viewpoints. We saw prairie dog towns with hundreds of prairie dogs popping in and out of their holes.
We explored more painted rocks. We did a hike that led to a clearing at the top of a mountain where you had a 360 degree view of the prairie and buttes.
And then after joking around all afternoon about seeing bison, we were lucky enough to actually find some near the end of our hike! That made our day. Couldn’t believe we actually saw some.
After the scenic drive, we booked a campsite in Medora, right outside of the park. Medora was a small, old wild western style town and we enjoyed a fun night there.
We ate the Pitchfork Steak Fondue feast, which included delicious steak cooked on pitchforks and all of the buffet extras like beans, baked potato, and garlic toast that we could eat. The dinner was served up on a bluff that overlooked the North Dakota badlands.
After dinner, we attended the famous Medora Musical. It was great show filled with music, comedy, and talent that went through the history of the area and Theodore Roosevelt. The visiting troupe Chicago Boyz was a highlight and they hyped the crowd with some insane jumps and acrobatics.
Before going to sleep, I looked up at the night sky, and my goodness, I saw the most stars I’ve ever seen in my life. I guess that’s what you get without city lights. I was enamored and stood staring at the sky for a while.
Goodnight, world.
After deciding to leave Epic and Madison, I started to plan my trip home. Since I would be bringing my car back to the Bay Area with me, why not make it a road trip?
I chose to construct a route going through the northern part of the country, as I hadn’t visited much of that area and there were a bunch of national parks and places that I’ve always wanted to visit, most notably Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore.
As I pieced together my route, I found and added more stops to the list, ending up with a final 10-day, 9-night journey. My brother Brian took a one-way flight to Madison to join me.
All that was left was to sell my furniture, pack up my life into the car, and drive.
Kicked off the road trip bright and early in the morning (this will become a theme).
First stop was in Minneapolis, Minnesota to grab lunch with a friend. Afterwards, we took a quick detour to the Mall of America, since Brian had never been there (I’ve been once before).
The Mall of America is, like it’s name implies, the largest mall in the United States. It includes all of your standard mall stores, plus roller coasters, an aquarium, and multiple movie theaters.
I think we were just trying to not get lost in there.
After walking around the mall a bit, we continued on to our next stop in Fargo, North Dakota.
We stayed at a Courtyard hotel, which had some of the friendliest employees I’ve ever met, and that means something . Then we had some good pizza at Rhombus Guys and drove around downtown Fargo a bit.
Found an artful bison statue. Seems like a lot of cities do something like this. I’ve seen artsy hearts in San Francisco and artsy cowboy boots in Cheyenne.
After dinner, we took the evening to enjoy the nice hotel amenities, showers, and beds, as we knew the next six nights were going to be spent in sleeping bags on the ground.
I said goodbye to Madison this morning after an awesome 3 years and 9 months of living here.
My time at Epic and in Madison was kind of like a second college for me. After four years of undergrad, I spent another almost four years in badger town.
I’ve grown a lot here, both personally and professionally. For one, I ended up taking 103 business trips and spending 274 days onsite at hospitals for Epic. I also came here at age 22 and leave at age 25 (almost 26). Madison is a fun, fun place to be in your early-to-mid twenties.
But it’s a sad day today, because I’ve made so many great memories here. It really started to sink in on my last day of work at Epic and as I was packing up my life into my car.
Some things I’ll really miss:
- Drinking and eating all the beer, cheese, and brats
- Enjoying a beautiful summer day out at the Terrace with friends and pitchers
- Being so cold that it physically hurts (just kidding, won’t miss that part at all)
- Skating out on a pond and playing pickup hockey
- Jumping around at Badger football games
- Watching those majestic sunsets with the most amazing colors
What I’ll miss most about Madison though is being able to walk everywhere downtown, and oftentimes running into friends and people I know. Won’t be able to find the same back in the big cities.
Also, that stereotype about Midwesterners being overly nice? It’s true! And pardon the double use of word, but it’s really nice to be around nice people.
On my last night yesterday, I got to take in one final pitcher at the Terrace surrounded by people I can now call some of my best friends.
Madison, you’ll always have a special place in my heart. But now, it’s time to go home.
