the badlands story

i feel like story telling this morning:

Every summer since I was about 8 or 9 my family and I would go on vacation. Sounds normal. Only instead of jetting around the world, or going camping or going to Disney Land we would pack our car and drive to one of the coasts of Canada. Our first trip was out east and we went to PEI. The second trip was out West and I think we only went to Alberta. The year after that we went out east again going as far as Newfoundland. The year after that out west to BC. We drove to Alaska and back one year (that took us 6 weeks), and another year we went to Labrador. You get the point.

I've been to both coasts at least 3 times each and done some cool things like whale watching for orcas and humpbacks, panning for gold in the Yukon, been to Drumheller Alberta to see the dinosaurs, been to L'Anse aux Meadows to see where the Vikings first landed etc. Random, cool, weird, slightly crazy stuff.

One of the craziest things that happened to me though was when I fell down a badland in South Dakota.

Now you're saying, wait wait wait, South Dakota is not in Canada. And you would be right, sometmes on our vacations we would drive through Canada one way and drive through the States on the way back or vise versa.

Thus, on one particularly fine day we found ourselves in the badlands of South Dakota. I was maybe 12 and my brother was 8. When 8 year old boys see rocks and hills what do they want to do? Climb them.

We were on a boardwalk path and my dad, my brother and I left the path to climb on the rocks/badland that were beside the path. Yes there were signs saying DO NOT CLIMB. But yeah, we did it anyway.

So we're climbing along, none of us in running shoes, but in sandles, when suddenly I slip. I start to slide backwards. I try to grab onto something to stop myself from falling, but it's loose gravel i'm trying to grab onto. I slide backwards some more. I scramble and finally find something to hold onto. I stop moving.

This happens within 3 seconds.

My dad then falls and slides backwards. He topples over me and ends up behind me. He's able to stop himself from falling further.

Then

my brother falls. He slides right by me, and right between my dad's legs. My dad grabs the back of his shirt to stop him from falling and going right over the edge where when I look I can see green far far below. The drop must have been about 200 feet.

My dad looked at me and said CLIMB. So i start moving. Within a minute we're all up where we started and we can see my mom, who had climbed over the rail of the path because we had toppled out of her view. She thought we might have been dead.

We all get back over to the walkway. We all have a few scrapes but for some reason i'm in the worst shape, I have 2 massive scrapes/cuts running from my wrist to elbow on both of my outter arms, and my knees are lacking some skin.

I hated the badlands after that. We never climbed where it told us "do not climb" again and yes, I realize we should have obeyed the sign to begin with. I think this is why I'm slightly afraid of heights. I can still see that patch of green 200 feet + below me everytime I hear the word badlands.