Badlands by headlamp
Free BLM camping fifteen miles from the park entrance — cell signal that comes and goes, more pronghorn than people, and a moon so full we forgot we packed lanterns.
Buffalo Gap National Grassland sits just outside Badlands NP — the parking-lot view of the park, minus the parking lot. We pulled in at sundown, set up by headlamp, and discovered at 2 AM that the wind here doesn't care about your awning.
Wind. Constant, sneaky wind. We staked the awning twice and still rolled it back up after night two. Also: the access road is washboard for the last three miles — anything not strapped down inside the trailer migrated to one wall.
No water, no trash, no signal once you're more than a half-mile in. We thought we had cell because the bars showed up at the turnoff. Inside the camp loop: zero.
Stars. The Milky Way looked drawn-on. We sat outside for an hour after dinner just watching satellites cross.
A pronghorn herd, maybe forty deep, grazing across our site at dawn. They paused twenty feet from the trailer, decided we were a rock, and kept moving.
Free for fourteen days. The park entrance is a fifteen-minute drive. We'll be back.
From the campfire.
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what a cool story
cool! We want to visit this place
is fall the best time?
I think Summer is