The next day is spent in the surrounding black hills area. I find a sweet hike off the app All Trails named Buzzard Rock, so I spend the morning hiking and taking in some impressive views of Black Hills National Forest. After my 6 mile hike, I head into the town of Rapid City to work on my resume one more time and to apply for the job I’ve been eyeing. I found a sweet little shop named Pure Bean in an old creamery factory. Almost didn’t find it because they have kept the historical context of the building’s exterior, all while allowing small businesses to take shop inside.
After my relaxing morning in Rapid City, I decide to make the jump to Badlands National Park a few hours away. There’s a free park run campsite just inside the western boundary of the park. If it’s free, it probably means it’s too far away from anything to manage for profit, so I’m expecting just bare bones of a site. And I was right.
Twenty miles of dirt roads brought me to the western entrance of Badlands NP. Buffalo are crossing the road regularly here, and prairie dogs are dotting the right of way. Pretty neat! Another 5 minutes of driving brings me to the campsite, which honestly was just a large circle of dirt road surrounding an impressively large prairie dog colony. I step out of the truck to take some pics of the cuties, but I’m instantly swarmed by biting flies. Dammit. I find a spot and decide to read a bit until it’s cool enough to do any outside activities.
After an hour or so I decide to do some backcountry hiking. This campsite is apparently where most hikers leave from, so there has to be some decent trails or at least neat features to hike to. I get my water, bug spray, GPS, snacks, everything I would need for hiking a few hours. I lock up the truck and head out towards some sweet looking whitish rock structures I can just barely see on the horizon. But, as soon as I step into the tall grass I am instantly mauled by insects. More biting flies, mosquitoes, horse flies, everything. It’s awful. I have a legit cloud of buzzing around me and I’m only 30 steps in. So I do what any good hiker would do in this situation, and completely bail on hiking.
Back at the truck, I decide to just keep reading and drink some of the beers I have acquired along the way. After a few minutes, a family pulls up in the most decked out F150 and offroad camping trailer I have ever seen. This thing is legit. And expensive looking. The dad parks next to me and two kids and wife pop out to survey the site. I watch them make dinner as the kids are messing around the camp area. All good clean fun.
Eventually the wife pops her head over towards my truck and asks if I’d like to come hang out with them. You know what, why not. Anything is better than just chilling alone in my truck in the middle of the bug ridden desert. I decide to make a quick sandwich before going over. Here is my mistake. My tortillas had apparently molded over. I decide to just scratch off the moldy surface and follow suit with sandwich making per usual. This turns out, was not the best decision I have ever made.
I go over to the camp next door and drink a few beers while swapping stories. They are from Milwaukee and in the beer and wine industry. The dad has done tons of car camping and motorcycle camping in his day, and share stories of being stuck for multiple days in the desert. I feel pretty lucky technology has gotten so much better in the past 10 years…
After a few hours I decide to go to bed as I want to get up early to hike. It was a good idea in theory. What actually happened is that I fell asleep with the glass tail gate open on the truck. It was still pretty warm and the bugs had finally died down. Around 1am I was woken up by a crazy intense storm that hit the camp ground. The truck was shaking violently in the wind, water was pouring in over my feet and the lightning looked like strobe lights at a rave. Oh, and I had to puke my brains out over the tailgate in the rain. At least the rain will wash away my vomit sins? I slink back in the truck, close up the glass, and try to find a dry spot to fall back asleep.
In the morning, everything is moist and hot and gross. I pop my head out to see remnants of lunch still attached to the hitch of the truck. I feel weak as shit and tired beyond belief. I stayed in bed/truck until 11am, where I could finally manage to get around to the driver’s seat.
Good think the Badlands aren’t that cool, or I would have been disappointed to be this sick. There were some neat overlooks. Sure. But man this is nothing compared to some of the other areas in Utah. I’m sure it would be more impressive if I had started my trip here, but alas, I did not. The only cool hike I found included an insanely steep ladder that allows you to climb up one of the white stone features. Going up was a breeze, but going down was quite terrifying.
I do my obligatory photo ops and a few short hikes, but quickly realize that I don’t give a shit about this park due to how I’m feeling. A huge storm starts to roll in, so I duck into the back and take a power nap. I love naps.
Once I wake up, it’s still hot and muggy, so I decide to leave the park and find a place to spend the night. There is apparently a spot within the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands that is well rated. I pack up my sick self and start driving south. If you didn’t know, National Grassland really means government owned cow pasture. Seriously. I pull up to the property and there are cattle fences, cattle grates, and a shit load of cows. No bother, I drive through the cow patties and make my way to a nice little knoll with a fantastic view. I’m finally starting to feel human again which is fantastic. I make some delicious ramen noodles and tuck in for the night.
What I was not prepared for the next morning was to be woken up by cows yelling loudly a few feet from my open tailgate. We were both confused by each other’s presence. Once I had figured out where I was and why there were so many cows, I realized it was a beautiful morning and I didn’t feel sick anymore at all. I made coffee and proceeded to plot out how I would get to my next location. I am supposed to be visiting an old friend in Omaha, Nebraska so I need to make my way through the heartland to get there. Looking on the map, there isn’t shit of interest except one National Monument. I stick the address in the GPS and begin my trek out over cow pasture and dirt roads.
While I could take a straight path to Omaha, I realize there is just about nothing of interest in between Buffalo Gap National Grassland and Omaha except a little park name Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. It’s out of the way, but screw it, I like fossils. So I head south to the fossil beds.
Agate Fossil Beds ended up being totally awesome and worth the two hour detour it ended up taking. The first hike was exciting and unexpected. Short, yes, but there were these super cool corkscrew fossils of prehistoric beaver burrows. One really good example was encased in a hilarious phone book looking structure. I did my walk, saw my beaver burrows, then headed up to the visitor center. The exhibits here were pretty incredible and not what I expected. There was a collection there from James H Cook, a cowboy from Texas that arrived in western Nebraska in the early 1870s. Cook had a chance encounter with the chief of the Oglala Lakota tribe named Red Cloud in 1974. Through the next thirty years, Cook and Red Cloud had an amazing and unique friendship unlike anything thing else found in that time period. Members of the tribe from all over would come to Cook’s property and share tools, clothing, pipes, hides, you name it. Cook and the Lakota tribe were tight, and Cook acted as a translator and political ally to the tribe during their friendship. When Cook finally passed in the early 1900s, the family decided to protect and preserve the amazing artifacts he had been gifted over the years, and those artifacts are now held at Agate Fossil Beds NM. So many perfectly preserved pipes and clothing, along with some early photography of Cook and the tribe members. Not my normal area of fascination, but this stuff was pretty amazing.
After admiring the native American artifacts, I decided to do one more hike at the park that originated from the visitor center. This hike led up to where a huge amount of fossils were extracted in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a prehistoric shallow lake where large animals apparently went to die. With climate change rampant, the Nebraska plains were shifting from tropical-ish forest to what they are now, dry ass plains. Animals traveled from all over in search of water, and there just happened to be a small lake here. My favorite animal found here was the Beardog. It was discovered in 1981, and was a wolf sized burrowing animal that fed on the dying remains of other dehydrated animals coming to the pond. Basically, a terrifying cleanup crew that lived underground.
After the hike, I decided I needed to get across Nebraska and find a place to camp. I’m supposed to meet my buddy Lisa tomorrow, and I’m still like 8 hours away. I pull up freecampsites.net and find a free city run campground in Aurora, NE that looks nice. I pop in the coordinates and head east.
There is so much damn corn in Nebraska… Like, I don’t think I passed any natural areas while crossing the state. I got into the campground pretty late, and realized there was only one spot remaining next to the dude that appears to be living out of a 1980 Nissan Sentra. There are at least 4 other campers here that are in no shape to be moved, so I’m assuming they are permanent residents. I park in the only open spot and walk to the bathroom and to check the camper information. As I’m walking, a dude in one of the campers pulls out a foldable chair, takes a seat and cracks a beer. Just, facing the parking lot. Alone. No book, no phone, just watching me walk by. I try to wave hi, you know make eye contact and assert my dominance. But he just stares at me. Awesome.
I go pee, donate a few bucks to the camper registration, and walk back to the truck. Again passing the audience of one. I get in the truck, lock the back, and decide to stay put for the rest of the night.
In the morning, I wake up early and decide to leave pretty quickly. This place is creepy as shit. I get dressed, brush my teeth, and search for a coffee shop so I don’t have to be outside in this crappy campground while I make breakfast. I find a cute one online and head to downtown Aurora.
Ok I head to what used to be downtown Aurora. I guess the economy hit this town hard, as none of the shops here are open. Everything is shut down, boarded up and dilapidated. It looks like it would have been cute, but now it appears to be run over by big corn industries. Can’t say I really care… I get back on the interstate and continue my journey east to find coffee and get to Omaha.
