After a long day of RV travel and setup just outside of Badlands National Park, I found myself drawn back outside as twilight gave way to night. The air was still, and the last sliver of golden light clung to the western horizon as I set up my gear. The park’s surreal landscape may be its daytime claim to fame, but after dark, the sky steals the show.
As the light faded, the stars began to pierce through—first a few, then hundreds, then thousands. The Milky Way arched overhead, its galactic core burning bright in the southern sky. It always amazes me how alive the night can feel in these remote places. There was no wind, no traffic—just the hum of my intervalometer and the sudden, haunting howls of coyotes echoing in the distance. It’s that kind of eerie sound that makes your neck tingle, even when you know you’re safe. I found myself subconsciously drifting closer to the camper, the glow of its interior light a quiet comfort in the dark.
In this photograph, I tried to capture not just the sky, but the feeling of that moment. The open prairie, lit faintly by starlight, adds context and contrast to the brilliance above. The soft lights on the horizon remind us of the few others out there, tucked away in their own corners of the dark. It’s a reminder that beauty doesn’t just live in national parks or famous overlooks—it lives in the spaces between, in the quiet, forgotten stretches of the land, where the night sky tells its ancient story to anyone willing to look up and listen.
