Day 12-8/14/2024
I didn’t take a walk this morning because we are going on a hike. We are making a loop on Medicine Root and Castle trails. It is about 4 miles long. It is going to be a hot day with very little shade, so we are getting an early start.
On our way to the northeast entrance of the Park, we encountered a round-up. We had to go slow because the cowboys and cowgirls were driving the cattle across the highway, and we didn't want to spook them. One of the cows and a calf, possibly hers, were separated and desperately trying to get back to one another. They were all over the place. I have a video of it, but it's not great, and it's long. So I won't show it here.
We stopped at the Big Badlands Overlook before making it to the trailhead. It was an interesting view, and I took some pictures with Anna Marie's camera. We stayed there for about 5 minutes or so, then we drove to the trailhead.
We made it to the trailhead for the Medicine Root and Castle Trails on the northeast side of the Park. Vince thought he’d be smart and put on his shorts. We quickly found out the Medicine Root trail is somewhat overgrown with lots of grasses. We even found some poison ivy! It was a pretty flat trail all the way to the Castle Trail intersection. We saw lots of cottonwood trees and other vegetation. I guess that’s why they call it Medicine Root trail.🤷
I will insert here that everywhere we've gone so far this trip, we've made friends with people along the way. I am amazed at how many people we have met so far. Someone invariably strikes up a conversation with Vince. It could be a shirt or hat he's wearing, something about the Jeep or Faye. It doesn't seem to matter. We've found connections through these new acquaintances with people we have known for a long time. I'm sure it's all God because we didn't initiate the conversation very often. We were just friendly to the people we met along the way.
After lunch back at the visitor center in which we struck up a conversation with a motorcycle guy, we decided to go to the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center just north of the interstate. That was interesting. We got a hiking medallion and a magnet. We watched a video about the site and looked at some of the exhibits. We couldn’t go on the tour because we didn’t get tickets in time. They don’t take walk-ins. If someone cancels or is a no-show, they don’t replace them.
We wanted to do this Jeeping trail called Sheep Mountain Table in the park, but it’s all the way on the other side of the park. We figured that we're here. We might as well do it, especially since I had read rave reviews about it. So we went in the northeast entrance of Badlands, then drove on Highway 44 for 32 miles to a town called Scenic. It’s really a ghost town. We drove a little way south of Scenic and turned right on a bumpy, gravel road that took us to the Sheep Mountain Table trail. It was fun, and the reviewers for this trail weren’t wrong. The view at the top was gorgeous!! It made the long drive there and back to the RV well worth the trip. Both of us said we are so glad we did it.
To get back to our campsite, we took the same Highway 44, but we turned north on Conata Road which dumped us out on the main road that goes through Badlands National Park. Then we turned left and drove out of the park to our campsite.
Let's play "I Spy". Can you spot Faye in this picture?
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