My had my first view of The Badlands when I was a child headed towards Yellowstone N. P. with my parents.  I could understand why this was called The Badlands. Could you imagine the troubles Indians had with this piece of land. How about settlers with wagons and oxen?   There is a road through The Badlands these days and all is good.

The four images below were all made within a short distance from each other. It is amazing that they were taken in the same park much less almost next to one another.  One of the most versatile places for  landscape photography that I have ever been.

I should include the caveat that I am pretty easy to please when I travel and can find a place to point my camera.  The Badlands might not be for you.  Many years ago my opinion of the Badlands prompted another photographer to travel there to make pictures.  Upon his return he claimed he couldn’t find anything to photograph.  We are all different when it comes to beauty.

An email question from a friend has prompted me to address my absence from Facebook

Many of you know that a couple of years ago I pretty much disappeared from the internet all together.  The reason for that is immaterial, but one day I decided to log on and check all of the various places on the web that I belong to or that I actually run. I did so on an unsecured Wi Fi system.  Someone was watching me as I logged in with my passwords and usernames.  Now the security at every location worked.  They realized that my computer ID numbers and locations were different. Nothing was accomplished by the hacker.  I fixed all of the issues with a lot of work but no real problems.  Since that time most of my internet related venues have been hacker free, except Facebook and this blog. The attempts on the blog always follow a controversial writing by me, but it seems that the couple of attempts on Facebook have no significance at all.  I finally just grew weary of dealing with it. I will fight to keep the blog going no matter what because it contains a part of me, as well as friends like Ron, Darlene and others.  Facebook belongs to billions of people. It in fact belongs to everybody.  I feel no personal stake in social media sites.

I am sure I will once again return to Facebook as I have both personal friends and other people I enjoy following.  When I do, I have considered reducing my “friendships” to actual  friends, people from this area that are interested in the same things as me, those that I know from birding and photography groups and those hard-core pros that I enjoy following, of which some are personal acquaintances and most are not.

I think reducing my Facebook contacts to somewhere around 50 friends, will simplify things and possibly sever ties with whomever it is that enjoys hacking my account. It will also simplify my home page.  Right now my daily trip to my home page is showing me a page full of people who do not fit any of the categories I listed above. I always found it necessary to visit the Timeline pages of most of my friends, and some of those pros I choose to follow, if I wanted to view their posts.   Most of my home page was filled with non-English written posts.  Facebook’s translations leave quite a bit to be desired.

It’s a funny world we live in today, or at least it is for me. Trying to occupy a place  on social media, writing a blog etc. necessitates a public persona for even the least known among us.  For me, life without privacy is not a desirable outcome.

That’s all for today my friends, please come back soon,                                                              Wayne