Day 10

It's a big jump to go from a jacuzzi suite to a primitive campsite at the Badlands, so we made the most of our morning. "Ice Age" was on the TV, and we watched the movie while getting ready for our first camping experience in Badlands National Park. A thorough search of Emily's cosmetics case yielded a total absence of toenail clippers, though, so a Walgreens stop was in order.

While in the store, I wandered into the sporting goods aisle and wound up purchasing two more frisbees, thus bringing the grand total to four. You can never have too many frisbees. Emily walked out with a new pair of sunglasses.

After making one last stop at a natural foods store to pick up hummus, trail mix, and veggies, we pointed Goldie toward the Badlands and took off. The scenery was a bit dry and drab, as were our food choices when lunchtime came along. We ate a Pizza Hut in the dusty town of Winner, where I called my parents and asked them for some survival tactics to use during our camping trip. Example:

Me: "Should Emily and I be wary of coyotes?"
Mom: "Hold on a sec." Cups the receiver and yells to my dad. "BOB, WILL COYOTES EAT THE KIDS?" Brings the phone back up to her mouth. "Yes. Watch out."

It was getting dark when we approached the Badlands, and things started getting rushed. Where should we camp - inside the actual park, or in the nearby Grasslands? Why is the ranger station closed? Is that rain on the horizon? Oh god, how did we take a wrong turn and somehow wind up outside of the park? What's going on? Is the new tent going to be hard to set up? Is that a bison on the horizon?

We decided to camp at the Sage Creek Campground and approached it as the sun was setting. We saw buffalo. We saw white-tailed deer. And then we saw how the grass was being flattened by the wind, and we prepared for a rough time setting up our temporary home.

The tent was very, very hard to put up. The sky was completely dark, the bugs were active, and the wind threatened to tear the material out of our hands. I parked the car directly in front of us, turned on the brights, and thrashed about our campsite. "Where's the top of the tent?" I bellowed. "Something doesn't look right. WHERE IS THE TOP OF THE TENT?" (Once daylight arrived eight hours later, we'd discover that our campsite was located inside the "Horse Use Area," which explained the constant stench of horse manure and the insects).

Once inside the tent, we ate a very small dinner of avocado slices and PB&J. The sleeping bags had been laid out by Emily (who kept her cool during the tent's construction, while I was freaking out), and we eventually fell asleep while the moon shone through the top of our mesh doorway. It was actually kinda nice. Maybe that tent isn't so stupid after all.