Badlands National Park
Today was a travel day, but it was only about 120 miles to Badlands National Park. Once we passed Rapid City, it was I-80 through rolling grasslands.
Cedar Pass Campground has two small loops with "campsites" that are areas where the road widens to allow a vehicle to park along the edge of the road. Depending on the size of the vehicle, the "road" between the campers/trailers can be very narrow. RVs on the opposite side of the road often had their bedroom slide hang out toward the traffic. We were fortunate that we were on a very level area with tent campsites on the opposite side of the road. We had plenty of room. The sites were electrical-only, but at least we could run our A/C. It was definitely summer here. The best feature of the camground was the fabulous view of the main badlands formations across from us. We watched the changing light on the formations throughout the afternoon and evening.
After it cooled off, we ventured out in Ruby to check out the area around the campground. Some of the more interesting formations were very near the campground, but the golden light never warmed up. I had just finished suggesting that we needed a pronghorn in front of a formation to provide interest when we saw four huge bighorn rams. Surprise! We pulled off the road, got our gear out, and started photographing. They were very busy feeding, so we were of little concern to them. We continued to circle around them to get the sun at our backs and get the best lighting on them. We photographed them until the sun was ready to set and they had retired to a small draw leading up to the badlands formations. They were a good omen for our wildlife adventures ahead.
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