Badlands National Park Bingo

A ground squirrel, not a dog. Watch one stand straight up and bark from a mound along the loop.

Prairie dogs do not just bark, they bark specifics. Different threats get different call patterns, and researchers studying their calls believe the animals can encode the kind of predator approaching, not only that something is coming.

The first view for most arrivals, just inside the northeast entrance. The Wall drops from prairie to basin right at the rail.

The first view for most arrivals, just inside the northeast entrance off I-90 Exit 131.

Look for a ram's heavy curled horns on the rock below the Pinnacles overlook rail.

A ram's two curled horns can weigh up to 30 pounds together, about as much as a big bag of dog food, and he carries them on his head his whole life.

A spire-and-canyon view near the north entrance. Best light comes driving east in the evening, sun behind you.

A sunset and sunrise vantage near the north entrance at I-90 Exit 110, looking west over a wall of spires and the Sage Creek basin.

Tan and white, built to run. Look for the white rump patch before you see the rest of the herd.

A pronghorn can hold about 55 miles an hour for half a mile and close to 45 mph over much longer distances, the fastest sustained speed of any land animal in the Western Hemisphere.

Banded yellow and red paleosol, a fossil floodplain 30 million years old, under gray rock. No walking required.

One of the few stops on the Loop Road where the color is not white and tan.

Feeds on the ground by day, roosts in a tree at night. Look for one working a gravel shoulder.

The National Park Service has clocked wild turkeys flying 55 miles an hour and running 25. The farm-raised kind can barely get off the ground; the wild kind goes up into a tree to sleep.

Gravel road along the Badlands Wilderness where the park's bison herd actually lives. Stay in the car near animals.

A gravel road along the north edge of the 64,144-acre Badlands Wilderness, designated in 1976, where bison roam free.

Easier to hear than to see. Listen for a piercing two-note call around camp at dusk.

The bird is named for what it says. The National Park Service describes the call as a shrill two-syllable kill-deer, kill-deer, and older American names for the species were Chattering Plover and Noisy Plover.

The other half of the park: mixed-grass prairie on top of the Wall. Watch the western sky for building storms.

The half of the park most visitors drive past: the flat mixed-grass prairie on top of the wall, not just the eroded buttes below it.

These mudstones hold one of the richest Oligocene mammal records anywhere. No collecting anywhere in the park.

These mudstones hold one of the richest Oligocene mammal records anywhere, collected by paleontologists since the 1840s and the scientific case behind the park'…

A boardwalk loop with replica skulls: the entelodont Archaeotherium, oreodonts, the tortoise Stylemys.

A boardwalk loop with replica skulls and exhibits of the Oligocene mammals pulled from these mudstones: the entelodont Archaeotherium, sometimes called the term…

A boardwalk to a gap in the Wall, then loose mounds where off-trail walking is legal. Agree on a landmark first.

The cluster off one Loop Road lot where you stand inside the eroded wall instead of looking at it.

The shortest, steepest climb in the park: straight up the Wall on loose clay to the prairie tableland.

A quarter mile round trip, rated strenuous by NPS, with roughly 300 feet of elevation change over that distance per NPS.

A separate NPS unit minutes from the northeast entrance. A Cold War missile silo and launch control facility.

A separate NPS unit on the same I-90 corridor at Exit 131 (Cactus Flat), minutes from the park's northeast entrance.

Free ice water since 1936, root beer floats, and a horse-hitching post at every parking spot on Main Street.

The gateway town at I-90 Exit 110, about seven miles north of the Pinnacles Entrance per NPS.

Sites face the Wall, so sunrise lands on the buttes from the tent. Walk to Ben Reifel for a ranger booklet.

The developed campground near Cedar Pass and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center, reservable through the lodge concessioner.

A pullout over open prairie instead of the eroded Wall. The quiet, grassy half of the park, no walking required.

A Loop Road pullout that looks out over the open mixed-grass prairie rather than the eroded wall, the quiet counterpoint to the busier spire overlooks.

Watch from a distance and never feed them. Their fleas can carry plague, and bison often graze the same flat.

The black-tailed prairie dog towns along the gravel Sage Creek Rim Road are reliable, loud, and a near-guaranteed kid favorite.

Pick up the booklet at Ben Reifel Visitor Center, finish the pages, and get sworn in by a ranger.

The Oglala Lakota name for this country. Say it out loud at an overlook, and say what it means.

Stand still near camp at dusk and listen for a killdeer's call before you ever see the bird.

Fill the frame with just the layered rock, no sky. Count how many colors you can name.

From an overlook, get the flat tableland, the eroded Wall, and the basin below all in the same shot.