Badlands Residency Day 22

Another day of gorgeous weather!  Took a long drive today to locate an area I've heard about, read about, and wanted to visit: Reflector City.  It's one of the remnant targets from the old Bombing Range, and the inner circle of the target is formed of old car bodies.  Had made plans earlier with friends to try to find this spot.  Spent a long time trying to locate it on a satellite map and gave up, passing the project on to Mike, who succeeded after an hour's efforts.  After talking to Katie about it to see if she'd want to come along, it turns out this mystical place is on her family's ranch, and she grew up playing out here!  Though it sounds easier to get there by driving through the ranch, it's actually easier/faster to drive all the way down towards Kyle, and take one of the BIA roads north, winding through the rolling hills.  Definitely needed the high clearance of a truck and four wheel drive.  It is so remote and lovely out here, yet so close to the areas I'm familiar with.  The badlands wall was easily visible in the distance (this is the feature that the north unit of the park is located around).  Seemed like hours to get there.  

John, Ryan, and Katie were excited to search  for the geo cache that someone placed here, and oddly ended up finding two separate caches.  Spent some time wandering around the old cars, looking at details, then headed out.  Katie was going to take us to a Mexican restaurant she likes in Kyle, but it was closed.  So too were the other two restaurants and the new visitor's center.  It was 1pm on a saturday, but that's how things go on the reservation.  The gas station/grocery store was open, so we got sub-par eats there and headed back to the park.  It was so nice out, we played some horseshoes and ended the day with a little rock band playing and a visit to see Jerry and Tricia at Wagon Wheel.

Oh, and on the drive down Hwy 44 towards Kyle, we had to stop for Horse Rescue #2!  For those unfamiliar with #1, refer to the post from April 2012 titled 'Horse Rescue.'  Today's wasn't nearly as difficult or dangerous.  Driving by, we noticed what appeared to be an expired horse, laying next to a fence line.  Turned out to be a horse whose legs were tangled in the barbed wire and could not roll out.  Probably had been scratching an itchy back and shifted a little too close to the fence.  As we assessed the situation, some people with a horse trailed stopped, too.  They had a rope, and after pulling the hooves out of the wire and roping them, the guys were able to pull her legs to the side and flip her over.  She promptly kicked out, righter herself, and took off with her horse-mates.

Tangled horse, thought she was already gone.

She was fine, just stuck.

Roping the legs.

And she runs off.

Along BIA 2 towards Kyle.

Sign upon entering former Bombing Range,
warning about unexploded ordnance.

Aerial view of Reflector City.  Back when it was used
as a bombing range, there were large reflectors on the
ground to help pilots locate the target, hence the name.

Katie exclaimed "the seat's still good on this one!"

You can see the pink of the badlands wall in the distance.
I could see deer haven from here, where I hiked Monday.

Hard to see, but there is a black and white target on the
door of this car.  Opposite side had large exit holes.

This car was torn apart by whatever struck it.

Plains clouds: how I love them.