Badlands.

Yesterday was a full venture of van struggles, heat, and amazing views. South Dakota is a BIG state...especially when it's 105 w/out AC and your vehicle can top about 60 on the highway. No worries, it kept us alert and in survival mode (ok, there were times I was dozing off and acting strange from dehydration, but that was inevitable). Diet cokes were helpful at first, but then the black liquid as a hot beverage tasted nasty and gave me a headache by days-end. Along the "Dances with Wolves" plains we kept seeing dozens of signs for "Wall Drug" - a town on the far side of the badlands. Little did we know of what awaited us there - or in the Badlands for that matter. The pinwheel-shaped wheat bales were our only companions during this stretch.

Once we paid our 15 skins to get into Badlands National Park, our creative urges overcame us and we staged several painting sessions, snapping hundreds of photos as well, and giddily hopping along the dusty ridges of the dry landscape. One slip and we'd be tumbling down the hillsides. By 10:30 am it was already 95 degrees, so we slowly crawled the van to our next stop so it could catch a mid-day break by noon. Hello, Wall Drug.