Badlands National Park, South Dakota
A bison is a two thousand pound behemoth that is impossible to miss if you visit the right park. That park is Badlands National Park, South Dakota. Heres the plan: Park your car. Stay in your car. Wait in the car with your camera. The bison will come to you. Don’t get out of your car. Take a picture. Carry on with your life.Here’s the whole sequence as it happened to me. A swarm in the distance looked like dots on the horizon.
It took me a while to register them as bison. The swarm came closer, and the individual animals appeared larger.
It was clear they were coming straight for me. I felt a certain sense of dread. I locked my car doors and took pictures. Bison moving inexorably closer to my location.
The bison were heading right towards me now! They were all around me! They were relentless! They came from all angles! What would I do? Well, keep the car door locked. I didn’t think bison would knock my car over. Where was this guy planning to go?
One of the bison stood right in front of me and watched me. Spooky! Is he winking at me? DID THAT BEHEMOTH WINK AT ME? I am not your type, bison guy. You need to find yourself a lady bison. Gross.
At long last! The beastly creatures sauntered past! I was safe! The swarm moved past my car. I live to tell the story!
This concludes the beast-swarm portion of my Badlands National Park adventure. Badlands is a beautiful park, and it is very easy to see wildlife. Also, in the summertime there werent many visitors.However I recommend visiting in July so as to avoid the cluster of traffic surrounding Sturgis. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held in South Dakota in early August. Its lovely to meet so many bikers on the road and in the diners, but it does create havoc for traffic and renting motel rooms. I had to avoid South Dakota completely in order to find a room at a reasonable price or even any room at all. Many motels and hotels were booked completely near Badlands because of the motorcycle rally. Next time I will travel this part of the country in July or September.
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Kristen Ankiewicz 