Day FOUR | How About 25 Cents for a Pheasant?

600 miles and ten hours later, we have arrived in the Badlands.  The landscape has quickly changed from towering crop fields to endless hills.  While in the van, we read articles about glaciers, the geography of the Badlands. 

These articles discuss how the Badlands were shaped through rainfall and streams, but were originally formed through accumulation of sediments in an inland sea.  This region also has extremely variable weather and can range from -42 degrees to over 116 degrees with an average rainfall of 16 inches.  The national park is 380 square miles with a rich history of wildlife.  

Fossils have shown three different types of rhinoceros once lived in this region along with alligators.  So many fossils have been collected in thee White River of the Badlands that it has been called “the world’s largest animal graveyard.”  The last article showed the geology of the region and shows a diagram of the rock formations dating back to 77 million years ago. 

The oldest period is known as the Pierre Shale Cretaceous and now forms yellow mounds.  The upper ends of the rock formations date to around 32 to 26 million years ago.  The serrated Badlands we know now did not come into existence until 500,000 years ago after water cut through the rock layers.  In addition to the readings, we also wrote about the technology we drove by on the way.  Some of the categories included agricultural, transportation and energetic technology.  In this writing we discussed how these technologies effect our landscape and what repercussions they might bring.  The most obvious one seen on the road was the energetic technology category since we passed both wind turbines and ethanol power plants.

Both of these energy sources seemed to be iconic to the landscape but the ethanol plant seems to also be nostalgic in its design.  Upon arrival, tents were assembled and then everyone quickly began to explore the extreme landscapes.