July 7th Badlands National Park

Friday, July 7th, 2006
Day 12
Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Today was an adventurous day. After breakfast I went on a geology walk/talk with a park ranger. It’s like a class, but better. We learned about sod tables, clastic dikes and paleosols. A sod table is a raised flat area with sod or grass on it. It looks like a table. These form here in the Badlands due to erosion occurring faster on the sides of the formation than on the top, due to the vegetation slowing down the process on top. Thus a flat topped structure forms. A clastic dike is a vein of different rock running up and down the rock formation. It is harder than the surrounding rock and may stick out because it is eroding more slowly. These formed when the rock split and the crack filled in with different material, hardening over time to form new rock. Paleosols are fossil soils from millions of years ago. The ones we saw were reddish in color due to high iron content which oxidized (think rust). The rock actually looks like soil. I also saw some yellowish ones today on a drive we took.

At 10:30 the kids, accompanied by Rod, took an outdoor Junior Ranger class. They played some sort of game called rattles. I don’t really know how it went, because I wasn’t there, but the kids earned a second Junior Ranger Badge at the class.

After lunch we took a drive along the Badlands Loop Road, a scenic tour. We drove it to the intersection with the Sage Creek Rim Road, a dirt and gravel road and took that to Prairie Dog Town where there was a Ranger program. We learned about the Prairie Dogs and also saw some, in addition to a herd of Bison in the distance. Along the way there we also saw a large 10 point mule deer buck in velvet. He was busy peeing and when he was done he ran back to the one tree anywhere in sight and disappeared beneath it.

On the way back from our excursion we stopped at the Big Pig Dig, where they are excavating an ancient watering hole. They have found many fossils there, including the big pig, Archeotherium, also, Mesohippus, an ancestor of the modern horse, and a small hornless rhinocerous that I can’t remember the name of right now. There were severe thunderstorms just to our south and we had a spectacular display of lightning on the drive back. We also stopped to observe some pronghorn antelope. There may have been 8-10 of them.

Once back in camp we cranked up the A/C since the temperature was close to 100 degrees. At 4:30 I took the kids to the evening Junior Ranger program where they learned about Lewis and Clark and made a booklet, earning a third badge. The severe storm warning we had was for penny sized hail and 70 mph winds, but thankfully that missed us and it just rained a tiny bit. Phew. I though I was going to have to brace for a hurricane-like situation.

Currently it is10 pm and cooling down. We had a lovely sunset and saw a beautiful rainbow. We also observed 3 mule deer from our picnic table, but they were far away. It was neat to watch them through the binoculars. Rod is 8 for 8, having seen deer in every state so far! Today we had no mechanical issues, but I am concerned about the refrigerator. It is not keeping the food cold enough. The temp in there is around 50 degrees. The freezer is also out of the “safe” zone, but still below the freezing point. We are thinking it is just because it has been near 100 degrees and we are in the blazing sun. Hopefully nothing is wrong with the unit.

Tomorrow we’re off to Custer State Park!