LONG STORY SHORT By Kristine McGowan What comes to mind when you think of the Northern Plains? Maybe it’s the view outside my window as I write this, sitting in the passenger seat of our truck while Jason drives us across North Dakota: endless fields in every direction, sometimes dotted with circular hay bales, sometimes packed with stalks of corn bowing in the wind. Maybe it’s a flat horizon interrupted by grain silos, or herds of cattle grazing on the side of the road. That’s certainly what much of the Northern Plains look like. We’ve spent a lot of time driving the two-lane roads here over the last couple weeks, and we’ve passed many farms and spotted far more crops than people. But we’ve also noticed a funny pattern. Every time we’re about to stop driving, the farms dry up suddenly. And, seemingly out of nowhere, the land changes. We’ve seen changes like this in other parts of the country, but they’ve always happened more gradually. Like when we headed south in March and watched the Texas plains grow vibrant with the subtropical trees and foliage of Louisiana. Or when our gas mileage dropped as we cut west across Kansas in June, because the ground was steadily rising as we neared the Rockies. Here, though, the Northern Plains offer no advanced warning. One minute, you’re looking at nothing but farms. The next, you’re watching the earth open up and twist itself out of shape. Every time, it’s made our jaws drop and ask, “How?” Here’s a look at parts of the Plains that have caught us off guard lately. Where have we been?Mount Rushmore National Memorial & Custer State Park, S.D.  South Dakota’s Black Hills do not evoke “plain” in any sense of the word. Undulating across 5,000 square miles of the state, the Black Hills are home to one of our country’s most famous national memorials and a state park that, we think, has all the makings of a national park. While here, we made sure to pay a visit to the stone-faced presidents and hike around the granite pinnacles of Custer State Park. Badlands National Park, S.D.  Talk about unexpected. After spending a few days sheltered by the Black Hills’ forests, we found the exposed, desolate landscape of Badlands National Park a bit eerie, especially when the full moon came out at night. Jason picked up a cold during our stay here, but we still managed to hike out to these strange formations to get a closer look. Devils Tower National Monument, Wyo.  Of everything we’ve encountered in the Northern Plains, nothing left us more perplexed than Devils Tower National Monument. The tower rises from the surrounding landscape so abruptly that it doesn’t seem like a product of natural forces; I’d more easily believe that a giant came along and set it down. Geologists still aren’t sure exactly how it formed, and we hiked around the tower’s base trying to guess an answer. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, N.D.  This national park isn’t easy to get to, but it has all of our favorite elements of the Northern Plains. Colorful badlands meet prairies and forests in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a landscape whose namesake president credited with shaping his character as a young man. We didn’t visit the site of his ranch here, but we did meet many of the locals that call this place home today—namely, the bison and prairie dogs. Where are we going next?We’ve made it back to the Midwest, but this time, we’re sticking pretty close to the water. From Minnesota, we’ll make our way southeast through the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin before we reach our fiftieth—yes, as in, the fiftieth one we’ve visited—national park.  104. Voyageurs National Park, Minn.
105. Lake Superior North Shore, Minn. 106. Duluth, Minn. 107. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wis. 108. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Mich. 109. Grand Rapids, Mich. 110. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
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