South Dakota

We didn't cross the border into South Dakota until well after dusk. We stopped in Sioux falls to eat dinner, and sleep at a friendly Motel 6. Motel 6 is generally fairly pet friendly, but this one even offered little green poo poo bags. After a fairly lurid breakfast, we were back on the road.

After western Minnesota, the landscape of eastern South Dakota was pretty interesting, but still quite flat. We followed the endless parade of signs to "Wall Drug", just because we didn't know any better. Wall Drug is your standard tired old tourist trap. We had a late lunch there and moved on, ...south to the badlands.

The badlands was absolutely breathtaking. Stark naked beauty.Quiet, humble, but windy and bustling with life and activity, if you listen and watch. We encountered a big old bison. Buffalos are more like cattle, think water buffalo. This was a big tatonka, majestic, sweet, and sad. To me, he spoke of the majesty of this great land, despoiled and discarded by..., well, by us.

There were prairie dogs. Fairly well camouflaged, they made themselves known by their cute, little squeaks, which, upon closer listening, were more evocative of the cry of the hawk. Quite communal, these busy little characters, worked and played well together, sharing space, but not food. There were warnings that they were carriers of the plague, which, I assume, meant the bubonic plague. Not desiring to be adorned by buboes, we kept our distance. Cute but deadly.

The context for all of this, the badlands themselves, sang softly, and danced lightly, in the sun. Large on a scale well outside the realm of common experience; intense, unforgiving, unwavering, but sweet and generous with their own beauty. These lands demand respect, but also encourage joy. It is a holy place. This is our holy land. The holy land of the new world.

By the way, these videos, and more, as well as links to still pictures, can be found at YouTube by searching for "unconxio.us".