We began the day by heading to the western-most spot in the Badlands (Sage Creek Campground) and then driving back slowly through the park. On the way we saw our first animal of the day, a group of Bighorn Sheep. They were chilling right next to the road. Almost all of them had a radio collar, so someone must track their movement. We then passed through several huge Prairie Dog towns with hundreds of animals in each. As we were getting to the end of one town, Donna told me to stop the car and back up, she had seen a Burrowing Owl! In all the times we’ve visited the Badlands we’ve never seen one. He was sitting on the dirt pile outside his burrow just watching.

Next we began to see Bison, then more Bison, and even more Bison. There was a huge herd on the move across the grasslands. There were also several smaller herds down below us on a lower area of the Badlands. We had several close to the road giving us some great pictures. We also spotted several groups of Pronghorn Antelope, some near the Bison, but most keeping their distance.

We then spent some time at the Conata picnic area, first doing some fossil hunting then having a quick lunch. It was a beautiful day to spend outside (especially for August), the temperature was upper 70’s most of the day with a nice breeze. We then drove through the rest of the park making multiple stops along the way, the views are awe inspiring. Then it was onto our favorite fossil hunting area (ya, we’ve been there enough times that we have a favorite spot). We spent almost two hours scrambling around through the buttes looking for fossils (and found quite a few). The highlight of the search was finding a fossil skull (probably an Oreodont). Funny thing was we both saw it at the same instant and both went ‘Look!!’ It was pretty intact with many other bones sticking out of the rock and on the hill below. We photographed the site and when we finished, we filled out a form to report its location. If they decide to remove the fossil, they’ll send me pictures and an update on its identification. Both Donna & Brian received their ‘I Did The Right Thing’ patches for reporting it!

Since we’d been out and about for around 7 hours, we opted for Bison burgers in the restaurant at Cedar Pass., they were excellent as usual.

Then we needed to kill some time before sunset, so we headed out for a walk on one of the well established trails (it even had a boardwalk). We hardly started and spotted our first Rattlesnake along side the boardwalk. He was very skittish, but also very large, probably about 2-3 feet long. Close at hand was a Desert Cottontail, I’m guessing the snake was thinking about dinner too. 

Another group of visitors came along and we warned them about the Rattlesnake and when the son went to take a picture, he got a bit close to the edge of the boardwalk and the snake rattled at us and disappeared underneath the boardwalk. The kid jumped about 2 feet backward, I’m sure he’ll never forget the encounter! At the end of the boardwalk was a beautiful spot to sit and overlook the Badlands. The sun was beginning to set, there was a nice breeze and the temperature was down to the lower 80’s. It was a perfect way to end and adventurous day, sitting together listening to the quiet and overlooking an amazing view.

We watched the sun set in two spots (the advantage of being in the mountains, just move past one peak and the sun comes back out 😀

Not sure what tomorrow will bring as they are predicting temperatures of around 105°, too hot for us to be outside (ya, it’s a dry heat, so it’s not so bad🥵)