Must Visit Natural Wonder!  Kara Silva From our partners
McClatchy and Tribune Newspapers  What would I do with a five-
day mini-getaway? Let's see, maybe New York City, San Francisco,
Miami or _ South Dakota? Lets be honest, the Mount Rushmore
State doesn't generally come to mind when thinking "vacation."
But after seeing a photo of Badlands National Park in the book
"501 Must-Visit Natural Wonders," I changed my mind.  The
National Park Service describes the South Dakota Badlands as one
of the planet's fastest-eroding landscapes. What you see today
will in some way be different tomorrow. The Badlands also are a
geological gem boasting a poetic blend of simple grandiosity and
rugged natural beauty. The never-ending dance of deposition and
erosion is what makes the Badlands remind us of the age of the
planet and the truth behind the saying "Nothing lasts forever."
Made up of 244,000 acres of rolling grasslands and serrated rock
formations, Badlands National Park largely is a landscape of
canyons, steep pinna