This post is from a series of articles chronicling a 2020 cross-country trip with my wife and two daughters and a boyfriend, from California to Ohio (to visit family) and Pennsylvania (to drop off my oldest daughter at grad school), and then back. We spent over five weeks on the road during the pandemic.

Almost in sight of the chalk towers of Monument Rocks is New Jerusalem Badlands State Park. New Jerusalem was until recently private property and has been protected by the family who owned the land, the McGuires. In 2019 New Jerusalem reopened as a public park, the land owned now by the Nature Conservancy—which normally does not allow public access to its properties—and the public access part handled by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. There is a trail that walks part of the rim of the badlands but there is no access down.

It looks to be in beautiful condition.

Still images don’t quite capture the sense of being there—these short videos, panning across the view, are much better at giving you a sense of it all.