A Home Away From Home
The sun is setting on the wheat covered prairies, the scenery all around is far different than my home near the hill covered sagebrush desert of the Treasure Valley. The raw blandness of the wheat and corn fields extending out for miles into the radiating glare of the orange hued sun, I find oddly inspiring. Weary and drowsy, the cross-country drive begins to take its toll on my spirit and body. My partner and I had departed from Memphis Tennessee the morning before in our underwhelming 2007 white Toyota Prius, filled to the brim with belongings and goods for the movement of her life from Memphis to Moscow. Along for the journey is our rambunctious cat Dexter who has already urinated in the car and in general has been the source of too many difficulties. The first segment of our 5-day journey had consisted of the lackluster scenery of Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa. It was a 10 hour straight “get it out of the way” ordeal. We didn’t expect this drive to be much better given South Dakota’s long known fame for being a flat and consistently mundane grassland. But this part of our trek from Omaha to a campsite just outside Badlands National Park in South Dakota would prove much more interesting, inspiring and challenging than we could have ever imagined.
We had been planning meticulously this road trip for many months and had fine tuned every detail. One thing we did not have the luxury of having was being appropriately equipped with camping gear. Unfazed and driven forward by the excitement of driving across most of the contiguous United States. We were particularly stoked to see famous wonders like Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore National Monument, the Sawtooth Mountains and Badlands National Park. Neither of us having been to the latter we fully anticipated the best of our drive would be found in the well documented splendor of Yellowstone. But the moment those prairie dog filled fields came into view in unison with the sun kissing the rugged and jagged badlands. Brought out colors on the paradoxically cursed, yet beautiful sandstone pillars that we had never experienced. We were instantly transfixed. We had seen photos online of our campsite, which were truly breathtaking, but we jotted it down as simply great photo taking. But now having driven 15+ hours seeing next to nothing, on the straightest and emptiest roads one could ever see, we were left helpless with the beauty that surrounded the entirety of this unique geological phenomena.
We drive into our campsite and the sun is well on its way down, it’s 5:30 P.M. and we hurriedly rushed to setup camp so that we could explore the park. We know we have only some of tomorrow morning and tonight to experience this natural wonder. We unpacked, having to improve at times, using a Nalgene to nail in our tent spikes and using safety pins to close a hole to prevent our cat from escaping into the night. Just as we are in the process of moving Dexter’s litterbox and food into the tent a storm begins to show itself from our south side, approaching hastily towards us and the Badlands. The wind picks up startlingly quick, a tent to our right which wasn’t staked in correctly begins to fly away. We quickly get all our things back into the car and sit and watch as a spontaneous and impressive storm takes hold of the campsite. We have intervals of vision from the car through the windshield wipers moving the torrential downpour from the car window. We see other people scramming to keep their tents from flying off in the destructive gusts of wind. Then hail the size of pennies begins to fall en masse on the top of our car making a sort of music that suited the spirit of the badlands themselves. The whole scene is chaos, you can hardly hear yourself think between the rain drumming accompanied by the bass of the hail and the panic of the campers trying to keep their tents amidst it all. Suddenly it all clicked, and we would later learn that the park had earned its name in the most literal of senses. The Lakota people dubbed this region the “Badlands” as the terrain itself is dry, rocky, subject to extreme temperature, winds and storms making the land nearly uninhabitable. It seems in our one night in Badlands National Park we were given the great pleasure of experiencing and connecting to the true spirit these lands have held for humankind for a millennium.
After some time, we and our fellow campers emerge from our cars as the storm makes its way towards the rainbow-colored peaks. The rugged hills are now in their full wickedness, their colors all but quelled by the rainclouds and the darkness they bring with them. Surprised by the viciousness of this now-gone storm. We curiously check the weather; we were surprised to discover that it recommended we take shelter immediately. That’s right there was a tornado warning for the whole park. Not being from Tornado territory I urged my partner that we stay in the car. But after watching many a car driving directly towards the storm, we decided we ought’ to at least to try and turn back if the weather proved too intense. What we experienced was something I’ll never forget. As we drove higher and higher into the now otherworldly landscape, we came across progressively fewer cars. Then at the very second, we were going to decide that we turn around, we pulled into a lookout spot at the very top of the ridge. There in our field of vision was an unbelievable clash between light and dark.
Atop, my mind travels back to the stories my father told of my grandpa when I was a kid. He had been born and raised on an Indian Reservation in North Dakota. I’d never really had a chance to understand the connection my ancestors had to their land. But here now I felt a powerful draw to my heritage and a newfound respect to my ancestors. Although my family’s native land was hundreds of miles away. Never had I felt such a connection to a place that was so foreign to me, it is still, an indescribable feeling. Even somewhere I’ve never been felt so welcoming and so perfect. All the Sudden an awe-inspiring lightning bolt shot down into the Earth.
Then, at that instant, I understood how everything in life provides something beautiful, no matter how destructive or bad something may look. Whether in yourself, or in something as distant as the weather. There is always a subtle beauty to everything in life. At least, for those who look. This was the magic that touched us on that summit, and this magic will forever forge my outlook on life’s troubles. The Badlands are so good because they are so bad, and that is the beauty of all things.”
