MaMaLiRZ

Conestoga wagons lined up, men jumped out to congregate and make a plan. The ladies started fires for cooking and the children were running around in joyous conquest. How do we get through these bad lands was the question on everyone’s mind?

This is the vision emblazoned in my mind as we drive our Japanese chariot the short distance from Rapid City to the Badlands National Park. The previous days muted colors run dry, becoming tans, browns and khakis.

Farmers’ fields stand in strong contrast to the landscape drawing the passersby attention in pops of gold, the color of marigolds. Rolling hills no bigger than a kiddy coaster ride are as far as the eye can see.

The Ancestors

Suddenly a smattering of black dots begin to come into focus. The ancestors, the bison, roam separated from the cattle by din-din bridges.

The kids exclaim, din-din mommy, din-din as the wheels of the car cross the grated bridge in the perfect onomatopoeia. With birthing season just past the babies cower beside their mamas for safety.

The bearded males stand in a proud stance with humphs of challenge as the car rolls quickly to a stop and we step out. Their stares are piercing, knowing. Among the males’ humphs were chirping sounds of warning or so I presume, with unknown origin.

Our eyes darted around over what appeared to be Earth’s adolescence pock marks, looking for the source. Blending into the pocks, there stood the sentry of prairie dogs. Their barks warning their families of the stranger danger, and us to move away.

Our eyes drank in the vision forever stamped in our mind’s eye. The beauty was unique and splendid, not to be forgotten.

Entering the Badlands

We continued on, feeling the need to return the animals to their peace. Shortly after, the landscape changed suddenly into striated pinnacles millions of years old, 32 million to be more clear, as we were later informed by the Park Ranger.

These are not mountains, they are different. Erosion visible even to my non-geologic eyes. This is a sediment with horizontal striation from millions of years’ layering: ocean floor, glacier carvings and scrapes; river floods. The story as visible to the eye as a childhood fairytale. Petrified fossils become visible as the wind blows. Seashells on the cracked desert-like surfave.

The setting ever evolving. Time choosing its sediment victims at random. Sometimes complete, other times rounded or sharp. The small pebbles waiting for their next victim of fate. They roll under our shoes like marbles until we slide. The slide becoming a hydroplane of pebbles until they shoot us off our course.

The tans merge to a barely traceable pink and red then back again to brown then khaki. The eye unaware of seeing the color until it moves past like a shadow in the dark. The clouds stand in overwatch, witnessing the evolution of time.

L RZ