Near Interior, S.D. — I’m writing this on my phone around 2 a.m. inside a Coleman four-person tent pitched on the edge of the endless prairie within Badlands National Park. My eldest daughter is awake in a second, much larger tent for the women of the family, holding its hinges against the wind so it doesn’t collapse. Again.

At this moment nylon is pressing in on me and my two sons from the south and west. If I had to guess, the sustained breeze is 10 to 15 miles per hour and the gusts that really whip the tent over 30.

About four hours ago we got a gale that lasted several minutes and bent the tentpoles inward as I vainly tried to hold them back and act like everything was perfectly in hand. At that point we all evacuated for a time to the Ford Transit that has safely delivered us to th

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