June 8, 2014. The Badlands.

The weather channel told us it would rain this morning and then clear up. The weather channel lied! We left Murdo in the rain, drove to the Badlands in the rain, went to Rapid City in the rain.

The Badlands was named some form of that word (bad land) from ancient times. The land is quite beautiful if totally inhospitable. We drove through the park stopping at interesting points, but decided to forgo our planned hike--the hiking trails were just rivulets of running muddy water, not conducive to hiking today.

 

 

 

We drove out of the park, then went to Rapid City, the "City of Presidents". All the past presidents of the US are represented in lifesize statues on the street corners of downtown Rapid City. We walked around in the rain taking photos of our favorites. I recognized some from afar, and had to read the tag on others. 

 

When we were wet enough and had seen enough presidents (we did not see all of them) we got back in the truck and headed for Angustura State Park. We rented a cabin on the Angustura Reservoir for the next 3 nights.