Freedom in the Badlands - National Parks Trip Part 3

Contemplating cobwebs, oral hygiene, and the enormity of time.

After Indiana Dunes, I chased the sun west. The windshield sunset over the Minnesota prairie was breathtaking, but the sun runs much faster than a rented Toyota Tacoma. I crossed the South Dakota line well after dark and pulled into the welcome center for a few hours of sleep.

I pulled into Badlands National Park just before lunch. Sage Creek Campground sits on the mixed-grass prairie that surrounds the Badlands. After scarfing down peanut butter and jelly smeared on bread, the tent was pitched against one of the prettiest backdrops on earth.

Contemplating cobwebs, oral hygiene, and the meaning of life.

It is all wide open, rolling green, with the pungent smell of clean sage hanging thick in the air and dozens of bison grazing their way along the far side of the creek bed. I could have sat for hours just breathing in all that open space.

The view from Sage Creek Campground after a storm.

But the Badlands were calling.

I got my first good glimpse at Pinnacles Overlook, a spot that really showcases the expanse of the Sage Creek Wilderness Area.

The badlands are vast in a way that feels very different from the expanse of the grasslands. It’s not just the enormity of space but the immensity of time laid out before you. The Badlands result from two geologic processes, deposition and erosion, which have gradually shaped the area for millions of years.

Someone else’s cobwebs after millions of years of deposition and erosion.

The place has a way of making you feel small, not just in size but in insignificance. In the grand scheme of time, we are nothing but a sneeze. While that might be depressing in a way, it is also incredibly freeing. All those embarrassing moments from high school that I relive obsessively seem so utterly pointless and inconsequential.

Also, what does it matter if there are cobwebs in the corners of my living room, that I beat myself up for sometimes forgetting to floss, or that my neighbors get upset because I don’t always pull my bin from the curb after trash pick up?

My first view from Pinnacles Overlook.

It will all be washed away some several million years into the future, and the molecules from my cobwebs, teeth, and trash bin will have been reconfigured into something so breathtakingly beautiful (especially at sunset) as the Badlands that maybe it is okay to leave them there. (Or to at least quit tormenting myself over such petty things.)

This is why I could stand on the edge, where verdant green meets dry and barren, and feel nothing but freedom on my face.

Penny having a spiritual moment in the Badlands.

.