Badlands and Denver, CO

Badlands National Park definitely gets my vote for most alien. At the risk of sounding trite, it's easy to see how it got the name "Badlands." It looks like the Grand Canyon, except weirder. Limestone outcroppings, forced into strange pointy shapes, sticking up out of grassy prairies. The weird part is that from one angle, they simply look like a grassy knoll. From the other side, there's a fifty-foot drop-off into pointy rocks. It's not country I'd want to be riding a horse through, especially if I didn't know exactly where I was going.

The rest of the day I spent recuperating. I curled up in my hotel room with a heating pad and the most recent season of "Entourage," and thanked the gods for Target. I went back to the Badlands that night for some stargazing. I got there just in time for a fantastic sunset; one of the best I've ever seen, in fact. There was just so much of it. Then I realized I'd have to wait an hour or so to be able to see any stars, so I hung my head out the car window, rested it on my elbow, and let all the quiet dark wash over me. No people, no lights, no sounds other than crickets and wind. I really missed John at that moment. I thought of all the various ways we could have killed an hour in a dark car in the middle of nowhere.

But clouds rolled in, so I headed back without the fantastic stargazing experience I'd hoped for. I had my iPod to cheer me up. The first part of the trip, I'd been listening to XM satellite radio exclusively; partly because I could, and partly because I kept forgetting to get an auxiliary cable so I could hook up my iPod to the car. But even though I was alternating between six or eight radio stations, I was getting tired of hearing Van Halen, ZZ Top, and John Mellencamp. Apparently these are the bands of summer. I finally remembered to get the cable while in Target (bless you, Target!) and so now I can listen to my own music again. It was like getting reacquainted with an old, dear friend.

And I had plenty of time to get reacquainted yesterday. I drove from Rapid City, SD to Denver, CO, crossing back into the big nothing that is Wyoming. In two hours of driving through Wyoming, I saw six pronghorn antelope. That is officially more antelope than cars. It's pretty country, and it makes for great driving, but it is a little creepy driving for so long with no signs of human habitation.

When I got to Colorado, I decided to hit Rocky Mountain National Park. On a Sunday. BIG mistake. The park is gorgeous, don't get me wrong--the highest paved road in the world, breathtaking views, and more wildlife than you can shake a stick at. I saw full-grown elk and moose. But the park was jammed with people--all the pull-offs were full of cars, so I couldn't get many pictures, and let's not even talk about how aggravated I was with traffic. I crawled all the way up the two-lane road leading to the park, crawled all the way through the park, crawled all the way back down the other side, and then when I finally got to the interstate, hoping to give my right leg a break from all the stop-and-start driving, the interstate was a parking lot. I was so annoyed I wanted to cry. No, scratch that--actually I wanted to get out of the car, throw a tantrum, firebomb the city of Denver, and then get drunk, not necessarily in that order. 12 straight hours of driving does not make for a happy Jenny. My shoulders and right leg are still killing me; I think today's order of business will be to find a spa and get as many 90-minute deep tissue massages as they can give me.