Badlands National Park & Hippie Hole

After Ohio we drove straight toward the Badlands. Took a night to camp in Iowa to get there, had to resist they myriad of Wall Drug signs, and some pullovers to feed Roslyn but we made it to the Badlands National Park as the sun was setting. We had the overlook to ourselves, national parks at night are the best. Joshua had never been and I was very excited for him to get to view the vast stunning landscape. He ran down the walkway with my camera getting more excited as he saw more and more of it come into view.

The striations and bursts of red running horizontally through the rock at exactly the same elevation all the way across these peaks of rock towers is a stunning view. They stretch out from this canyon for quite a distance and kind of take your breath away. After we had our fill of gazing we used the rest of the sunlight to get closer to some rock formations to climb on get up close to the texture.

The next day we went on a little hike among the landscape, soaked up some sun and soaked ourselves in sweat. We wanted to explore a bit more but the heat of the day started taking over and we had abort further exploration. Instead we headed to a place Joshua randomly found on the map called Hippie Hole. 

Hippie Hole was a hike down to a watering hole that you jump off of a cliff into. This activity was on my trip bucket list, and he was making it come true. The hike in was supposedly only 1/4 mile and we were still a bit novice at how to carry Roslyn. We figured it since it was a short distance the hike would be simple, it was popular with the locals, must be easy. Nope. Regretted not bringing the carrier, but not early on enough to want to turn back for it. The hike down was intensely steep down a slidy dirt forest. Roslyn was not happy and had quite the screaming bout. We had to walk down steep slidy portions, hand her to the next person, and so on, down this trail that was way more than 1/4 mile. Then we had to cross running water over big boulders. (It was safe, I promise! I'm being a bit dramatic to express our headspace in the moment) But we did have to think about it and we passed her back and forth as we wound to the watering hole feeling very dejected. Then we emerged to this sunny patch of rock with lovely pools of water and tons of kids and puppies running around, and the cliff jumping rock.

We afterwards admitted it was worth it and we had a fabulous time hanging out. The hike back up was not a problem at all, we found a different path, Roslyn was in a good mood, etc. Turns out maybe the hike down wasn't all that bad and was tainted by some exhaustion and too much crying. The excursion had been saved though and I got to do my cliff jumping. We then spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the sun at a lovely campsite we found for free nearby. We were very glad we stuck with it and didn't turn around!