American Gam

Travel isn’t always pretty, it isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take samething with you. Hopefully, you leave sumething good behind. ~ Anthony Bourdain

Carrying on is going to be incredibly difficult without our beautiful traveling companion. A broken tire or a broken camera are fixable, but a broken heart, how do you ever heal from such pain? They say “time heals all” but this wound, I fear, may never heal. The sudden loss is shocking and devastating. The tears may never stop flowing.

That said, we will carry on, we will move forward, we will persevere, we will fight the good fight because Kodi would want us to. And so we will…

Today is my birthday and I’m waking up on one of my favorite spots on the planet. Sage Creek Campground is in the Badlands Wilderness of South Dakota. I’ve been here twice before, once solo and a second time with my sister Norma and my boy Kodi. I love this place for its deafening silence. Here you will hear no traffic, no sirens, no societal chaos. Here you hear only what nature provides. The birds, the wind, the howling coyotes and my favorite, the grunting and snorting of wild bison.

On previous visits there would be herds of buffalo wandering aimlessly through the campground. Now, they have been pushed further out into the countryside where the taller grass is ready to be eaten. Why you ask? Because now this campground has turn into a Prairie Dog town! And they are everywhere! And they are noisy little critters! And they ate all of the grass that the bison loved to eat! It’s all dirt now!

Oh, the bison are still scattered about, finding patches of grass here and there, but the ecosystem of this place has completely changed! The noisy little varmints have decimated the land here.

Yeah, they’re cute, but for my birthday I was hoping to wake up surrounded by peaceful tatanka, not squeaky vermin. (Tatanka is the Lakota word for bison or buffalo. 🦬)

We relaxed most of the morning and were about to leave when four bison came strolling into the campground. We spent another hour there taking pictures of these magnificent animals…

On the way out of the campground we saw a few more tatanka…

…on our way to the next campsite at…The Wall.

I hope you have the opportunity to spend some time with these majestic Tatanka. 🦬

The gam continues…