human nature

On a road trip through South Dakota’s Black Hills and Badlands, Betsy Andrews contemplates the arresting landscapes —and our curious need to leave our mark on them

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We had come, mistakenly, for the wildflowers. We'd heard that in spring, South Dakota's Badlands erupted in blooms. Though we identified some provocative species-woolly locoweed, meadow death camas, and Western false asphodel, a carnivorous plant disguised in white frippery-we were a few weeks early for the main event. It was the start of May and still a bit chilly for most of the species to blossom.

As it happened, that was just fine. There was much to experience here courtesy of both nature and its human juxtapositions. South Dakota exemplifies the relationship between the odd-distinctly American-bedfellows of kitsch and transcendence. The 2021 Oscar-winning Nomadland, largely set in a tent and RV campground adjacent to Badlands National Park, astutely chronicles this coexistence, which we experienced firsthand.

Over the course of five days in this Midwestern state, my partner, Jeanne, and I drove 250 miles in a great loop from Rapid City east to the Badlands and then south and west to the Black Hills. We watched glorious sunrises over desolate canyons give way to mock trading posts and fiberglass jackalopes. We glamped and slept in log cabins, hiked and also shopped. All along we marveled at the beauty and complexity of this corner of America.

Our plane to Rapid City touched down in a pounding rain. We sat out the storm at Tally's Silver Spoon in the city's downtown and then perused the Native American art at the Prairie Edge Trading Co. & Galleries down the street and combed through the wares at Doc & Alice, a consignment shop in Rushmore Mall, where Jeanne, a shoe buff, scored a pair of knee-high lace-up Uggs-a New Yorker's idea of prairie chic.