All Day I Roamed the Barren Waste Without a Taste of Water – Cool, Clear Water!

July 27, 2006

With the dire predictions of temperatures over 100 F, we pulled out early - 7:30am. The terrain changed – flat as far as the eye could see and dry and brittle fields of harvested crops leaving behind white stubble in the dust.

We crossed the Missouri River at Pierre, the capital of South Dakota. The land was etched into corrugated hills much like the Alberta Badlands in the Drumheller area. Now 10am and it was getting HOT. The sun was dazzling and the air was rippling in the heat. The land was in its natural state, not cultivated – yellow grasslands over rolling hills, with cattle grazing close to the occasional waterholes. It was cracked into deep jagged gullies as if an earthquake fault line had cut the parched soil.

We left the side roads and travelled Interstate 90 for the last few miles to the Badlands. Huge billboards scarred the golden vista of grasslands advertising everything you could think of. One in particular caught my eye and made me shudder at the bloodthirsty message.

“Save Our Wildlife - Wear Fur
Hunting and Fishing Keep Populations in Balance”

I don’t need to comment further on that.

We chose The Badlands Resort and RV Park from the Passport America directory but wondered if we’d made a mistake as we left the highway to travel along a barren and dusty washboard gravel road. Our nerves were jarred as Maggie shuddered with every ripple but we were relieved when we crested a hill to see a treed area below – our campground. It was only 11am as we’d gained an hour crossing into Mountain Time and we settled in quickly cranking the AC up to maximum to cool us all down. We had two big trees for shade in the south and we faced east so Maggie would stay cool enough for Caesar to snooze the day away as we braved the Badlands National Park.

While the temperature’s high, the humidity’s low and so I didn’t feel it was that hot. I unhooked the car and busied myself setting up, not realizing how hot it really was. But I started feeling woozy and wove drunkenly back towards the motorhome, starting to collapse as I reached the door. I sank to my knees and clambered up the steps about to faint. I staved it off however lying down with a cold cloth on my brow. Fernie had a woozy episode shortly after…….then we realized how stupid we were. We had nothing to drink at all that morning since we got up. We were totally dehydrated! And they say that in this heat, you should drink twice as much as your thirst demands. Well, we learnt our lesson.

The Badlands rock formations of striated silver, pink and green shimmer in the blazing sun. Rounded mounds and jagged spires, a lunar landscape of dry and barren limestone made the early French prospectors call it “Les Mauvaise Terre” (please excuse me if I got the French expression a bit incorrect). At one point, we rounded a corner to a brilliant golden panorama, the colour as deep and rich as a gold bar – the rocks and grasses combined to make this dazzling display.


But there was life in and around the Badlands. Thousands or maybe millions of prairie dogs inhabited certain surrounding areas; they’d sit on their hefty haunches beside their burrows, little arms hanging and watch the road, scampering into their warrens while chattering warnings, if we got too close.


They were so ‘cute’ – we spent an hour or so watching them frolic.





On the grasslands, the Bison roamed and grazed freely – wild and unthreatened. The huge bulls lumbered along with thunderous steps, hauling their huge bodies clumsily. As they plodded, they’d stop to scratch their massive, moulting backs on any available tree trunk (which there weren’t too many of) or fence posts. Even though they are widely referred to as buffalo, they are really American Bison. French explorers in the mid 1800’s (those French guys were everywhere) referred to them as ‘les boeufs’ just as they called cattle and oxen and the word morphed into buffalo.

The bison and the prolific prairie dog have a relationship of sorts – the bison keep the grass short so the prairie dogs can build their burrows and I don’t know what the little critters do in return. I guess it’s a bit one-sided.

South of the Badlands, on the rim of a high plateau the grasslands were burning leaving a thick smoke over the plains. Fire trucks and water tankers seemed to have it in hand. Further north beside Interstate 90 near Piedmont, fires were out of control and an evacuation order was in place. They closed I90 while they fought the blaze apparently causing chaos. We were glad we were in no hurry to get through that way.

It reached 107 degrees today, which broke a record and horror of horrors, they’re forecasting 113 degrees for Sunday.