The North Dakota Badlands

The name always evoked in me a sense of desolate emptiness, devoid of color.  Not so.

A short rest stop here, in the North Dakota Badlands.

The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park, along Route 94, in western North Dakota.

The sun's glare prevented me from seeing what I was photographing until

after the fact.  So...most of the plaque.

Easy to see how pioneers in their wagons could get lost down in there and 

wander indefinitely trying to find a way out.

Views from the overlook behind the rest area building.  The Trucker has at times seen buffalo grazing far below.

Caught the Trucker enjoying the view.

The lawn between the parking area and the road.  Yup, buffalo have been here.  Hopefully not when human travelers were....
I found photos on the internet of buffalo grazing on the Rest Area lawn, but could not share them here.
Can you imagine sending your children out to collect these to use a fuel for cooking supper, as the pioneers did??

The entire national park is surrounded by miles of wire fencing.  The driveways entering and exiting rest areas have cattle guards - metal pipes with spaces between - embedded in the ground.  Cattle, buffalo, and other large animals will not walk over them.  Which protects them and the highway traffic from each other.

Almost like this.  Didn't get a photo of the ones where we stopped.

The truck, gleaming from it's recent wash, ready to go.

The north is unusually green, even for this time of year.  Rivers are running full, carpets of green grass cover the hills and plains. The expansive sky, the largeness of it all, make one feel as if one could just run free, on and on against the wind.

Those black dots are cattle.  

And nowhere else have I seen water as deep blue as here!

And then it was back on the road again, headed west, the mountains in the distance coming ever closer.....