Today was a great sightseeing day and probably our last National Park visit for this junket. We started with a visit to the Buffalo Gap Grass Preserve. We learned that this is the ONLY visitor center for all 20 of America's grassland preserves, which are under the care of the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. We watched an interesting movie that explained the history and importance of the need to preserve these grassland areas. Next we headed to Badlands National Park, near Wall, South Dakota for an eye-opening excursion into the world of erosion!! The Badlands is really a 100 mile long wall with canyons, pinacles, arroya that wagon trains of our pioneers could not penetrate. We'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but suffice it to say the rock in the Badlands region is very soft sandstone. Enjoy!

Meadowlark singing to us in the Badlands

Meadowlark is the state bird of South Dakota

The southern portion of the Badlands is an untouched area,
watched over by the Lakota Indians.