This morning I was up early enough to be at the appointed meeting place for a one hour hike into the Badlands with a park ranger who would talk about the geological development of the area. When I arrived just a little before 8:30, again there was no one else present. I waited until 8:45. Still no one. Then, slowly, it dawned on me. I have been moving west. I have probably passed into another time zone. I may have actually arrived at 7:30 instead of 8:30. That would also explain the missed fossil walk yesterday and the long wait last night at the astronomy evening. I asked a couple young ladies coming off of one of the trails what time it was, and they confirmed that it was a little after 7:30. Mystery solved!
I did a little of this and that and then returned for the walk. It was quite interesting and informative. Without going into details, I'll just mention that the whole area was at one time part of an inland sea. Geological changes then drained the sea into the Gulf of Mexico. Rivers washed down soil which created the buttes and mounds which are visible today. The rivers then changed course which left the area dry except for relatively little rainfall. Wind and rain continue to erode the buttes and mounds. In about another 500,000 years the area will probably all be flat again, so it's a good thing I came while there was still something wonderful to see.
Just outside the park is one of the storage silos that held missiles pointed at Russia during the Cold War. I viewed a short film about these missiles and then went to see one of the silos with a park guard and a small group. The actual missiles didn't look that big, but they carried more than 12 times the power of the bomb used at Hiroshima. This one missile contained as much power as 60% of the bombs dropped in all of WWII including the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia had bombs ten times more powerful than this missile, but it was explained that they needed bigger missiles because their accuracy was not as good as ours. The really scary part tho, is that the START treaty with Russia reduced our number of missiles from about 1,000 to a "mere" 450, which are still operative today. Quite sufficient, it seems to me, to end human life on planet earth.
After a big lunch, I went for a four-mile walk along a trail through the plains within the park. It was mostly just grassy, but upon closer inspection there were also cacti, a single aster, a variation of dandelions, another violet flower which I didn't recognize and some small sunflowers.
By this time a strong wind was blowing and it looked like it might rain, so I went back to check my tent. This was not a happy experience. Although I thought I had staked the tent well enough, apparently this was not the case. The tent was lying on its side against a post about 30 yards from where I had planted it. The rain fly had a big nine-inch rip in it and a couple of the stakes were missing. It was pretty discouraging! I dragged the tent back to my campsite and then left it there while I went about sewing up the rain fly. After several tries, all made difficult because of the strong wind, I managed to put down my new ground cover and set the tent back on its feet. I had to re-stake the tent a few times until it finally seemed to be holding.
Putting the fly back on top of the tent was even more difficult. My rain fly evidently thought it was a kite and attempted to take flight. Putting it back on top of the tent by myself proved impossible. Fortunately there was a couple just arrived at the tent site beside me, and I asked for help. With two of us working at it , it only took a minute or two until the fly was up and everything seemed to be holding.
Between the walk and the tent repair, I was pretty exhausted and took a nap for an hour inside the tent. It was chilly and still very windy when I woke up so I decided to go to the lodge for a light supper instead of cooking at the campsite. I left the campsite with a certain amount of trepidation. Would the tent still be up when I got back? Would I have to end up stuffing the tent into the car and sleeping on the front seat again? Would the tent suffer any further damage? Read on!
After a small but tasty spinach salad in the overly air conditioned dining room, I headed nervously back to my tent site. It was quite a relief to find my tent still erect! Now I know (more or less) how Francis Scott Key felt when he saw the "star spangled banner" still waving in the morning over Fort McHenry.
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