Just Words, Cross Country Edition: The Badlands

The infinite plains and soft hills go on for so long that we would begin to believe the Badlands are a myth, if not for the fact that Mike had been there eight years ago on a family trip. He says he remembers the Badlands being more magnificent than the Grand Canyon. We think he is delusional. Doubly delusional, actually, because there is no way that any substantial rock structures can coexist with infinite plains and soft hills.


The realization of my lack of faith exposes my cavernous mind like God seems to have taken the lid off 244,000 acres of caverns and bestowed to man the gift of the Badlands. It is at this juncture that I feel as I have only one other time in my life: I am in absolute, elemental awe. The first and all subsequent times that I've been to Niagara Falls, I've felt that I could stay in that one place forever. And so it is in this land of infinite plains and soft hills and rocks, rocks, rocks. Some resemble mountains; others hills; still others stalagmites, prehistoric animal skulls, and down-turned, dusty ceramic cups of Shut The Fuck Up.


It's so quiet it's almost vulgar, especially as I fall behind on the Notch Trail, where a ranger piques the interests of Brian, Mike, and Shane by divulging that the trail features rope ladders which lead to better views of the landscape. Meanwhile, I'm steady taking pictures as if I'll never return to this place – and as I become surrounded by a sound that would make a toddler sleep straight through to its death – I begin to think that I never will. I stand frozen and feel infantile amidst the resonant rattling in the calf-to-knee length grass, surrounded by evidence of things unseen. Faith and fear are coaxial. My head spins, remembering the enmity that God forged between Eve and her offspring and the Serpent and his. With the God-ignoring stubbornness of Adam, I snap a few more pictures before creeping my way back to the main roads.


Damn you, Eve, for tarnishing another Eden. And you, Satan: STFU.