Bret Hobbs' Adventure in Retirement: Wall Drug Adventure 2020

My last day off for my Wall Drug employment. Tomorrow I start my last six days of employment and then the next day I am a free man. :) When I woke up I was thinking about the Badlands that are directly behind where I live. I always see them in the distance and they had one large hill that kept calling me to climb. So I decided after breakfast to head out there and climb the hill and explore the mini Badland area. There was a road behind my trailer that lead to the Badland area. It passed by the Wall sewer treatment lakes and then headed toward the Badland area. I walked about a mile before I took a left and tried to spy a good path up to the top of the hill. By my estimate it was a 700 foot climb. I noticed that there were bike trails around me and my eyes followed them toward the hill. It seems that this area was popular with mountain bikers and their path helped me figure out a way to the top. After several minutes and a couple of rest stops I found myself on top of the largest hill. The one thing about climbing the Badlands type hills is that climbing is fairly easy. The ground is very sold and easy to climb, but if the ground is wet it would be very difficult. I had my high top hiking shoes on and it made the going easy, both up and down. Once I was on top I got to see beyond the major hill and what was there. I never have seen that area before because the hill facing my trailer blocked the view. It looked like a great place to hike some more, so I set about trying to find a way down on the back side of the hill. Unfortunately the mountain bikers never ventured on this side, so I had to make my way down on my own. After a couple of bad choices, I found a spot that would allow me to climb down onto the back side of the hill. I was glad I did climb down as there was some pretty interesting places to wander around. I found several nice rocks that I will be taking home and I also scared up a very pretty fox from it's den hole. I tried to get a picture of it but it ran away to quickly. Once I was down I tried to walk around to see many places in the lower area. I am sure many years ago that area once held a lot of water, but now was a dry lake bed, with an occasional filling when it rained hard or had a lot of snow. The rocks that were on the bottom were very interesting and the way they were scattered around indicated that water moved them over the years. After walking around I had to look up several times a the hill I came down to get my bearings. I could imagine it would be so easy to get lost in the real Badlands if all you did was walk around the lower areas. It takes a high loft to see where you need to go for sure. After about another mile of walking I decided to head back to the road. The trail I took led me to where there was a lot of junk strewn around. I guess in the long past Wall used the area as a junk yard. Several items were in the area between me and the road that I had to go around. A junk car, lawn mower, cans, bottles, etc.. Eventually I got back to the road and headed back to the trailer to take a shower and get cleaned up. I am glad I did the hike as the place was pretty interesting and the climbing was fun. Although I was disappointed I did not find any rattle snakes. There are warnings everywhere about the venomous snakes, but I have yet to see one in person. I was hoping to get a rattle for the grand-kids. :) That is about all the highlights for today. I am looking forward to my last 6 days of selling shoes and getting out of here. :) Take care everyone and stay safe. Pray for those that are sick or have lost someone recently. God hears them all.