The title of this post is a tribute to one of my favorite songs by the group Grasshopper Takeover. A friend of mine and I were, in fact, up and on our way at 4am Saturday morning, after a mere 45 minutes of sleep Friday night. The destination: western North Dakota, both units of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and a drive skirting the National Grasslands. The photo above was actually taken a short while after leaving Bismarck. That’s the moon on the horizon, not the sun! By exposing the photo for a little longer, the night sky came alive in the same brilliant orange we’re used to seeing during the sunset.

Once we got to the South Unit, it was time to chase some wildlife. This gigantic beast, however, was standing near to the parking lot. Not too near, thankfully; thanks to a telephoto lens, I didn’t have to live too dangerously.

I was hoping this little dispute would turn into a full blown fight, but these two guys worked out their differences after only a couple of taps.

The most dramatic scenery of the Badlands is the erosion. Erosion formed this incredibly beautiful area, and erosion constantly transforms it. What’s nice is that we can go hiking around in it. It really is more fun to see and experience firsthand than it is to photograph it.

There are herds of wild horses roaming the South Unit, one simply needs to know where to find them. The more exciting of the bunch required a little bit of hiking. Okay, a LOT of hiking. Thanks to the GPS attached to my camera pack, we were able to find our way back! It was great to actually get out into the Badlands on foot for a while.

Of course, there were lots of different flowers. I’ll only post one, but there were indeed quite a variety of different flowers. They stand out against the sand and clay of the soil, to be sure.

The sky was active that day. It was clear in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon, and the sky varied from hour to hour. These clouds looked like a set of venetian blinds across the sky.

I was able to add to my Fallen Farm series with this old farmhouse, sitting adjacent to Highway 85. What was even better was the dramatic sky above; the clouds were starting to really twist and twirl as a storm front approached from the northwest.

In the North Unit of the TR park we were unable to spot much for wildlife. They don’t have horses, and the buffalo were hiding down by the campground. There was a lot of beautiful scenery, however, and we took it all in. This particular rock is sitting a couple hundred feet above the floor of the canyon. I could have climbed over to it and tipped it off its perch. Believe me, I thought about it for a while. Anybody would be tempted, of course, but I wouldn’t want to ruin the view for other people. Thus it remains in place.

Oh yeah…the wildlife. I was hoping for a rattlesnake, inspecting all sorts of rocks and flats. Sadly, although my friend wasn’t disappointed, we never did find a snake. I did, however, find this little lizard. He darted up the rocks as I approached the area, which instantly caught my eye. We took a few pics of him from different angles, then he scrambled into the gap between the rocks.

By 6pm or so we were ready to head back. I’d hit my second wind, third wind, and fourth wind already, due to my lack of sleep the night before. We clocked five hundred miles on the road, hiked a few miles if we totaled up all the walking, had a fantastic pizza in Medora, and guzzled lots of water and pop. I took this shot on Highway 200 as we were cruising down the road. It was a fantastic trip. I slept like a rock Saturday night as a result, and have hundreds of photos to search through. So what did you do this weekend?