The Badlands

Drove 8 hours from Minneapolis to the Badlands yesterday. It was actually a very easy drive and probably could have went a little longer. Might have been due to the fact that we were listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (only made it through a 1/3 of the book), but who knows. We got into the park around 5 and got some information and then got our camp site. The park is very very pretty and a lot of interesting formations everywhere. The views are spectacular, especially from the campground. However, it's windy here. It took a while to cook some food and then during the night the wind was just whipping against our tent so bad we had to change up the rain fly and then eventually take it off, but at that point I decided to sleep in the car (which was surprisingly not bad and I actually slept fairly well). This morning we moved our tent to a different site that is near a tree and not on top of a hill, which should help the wind situation. After doing this, we went on about a 6-7 mile hike through part of the park. It was really amazing walking through (and even on) some of the formations. As we were coming back the sun started to really take over and it became fairly hot. The trail we took back to our car was also not that great since it took us through the plains area and not next to the formations. After we got back we grabbed lunch at the lodge, which is where I'm updating this from. Hopefully we'll get a better night's sleep tonight, and tomorrow head out to see Mt. Rushmore and Wind Cave.