We stopped in rural Wasta, South Dakota, where we spent the day at the Trax Ranch.       Pat Trax, with a group of other local ranchers, are fighting monopolies by four major Packing Companies “who control 80% of the slaughter industry,” said Pat.   He  told me  the Obama administration is  “right minded”  in some areas in respect to fighting this type of monopolistic control.   And he said the administration has been fairly good in general  about helping the small family ranchers and farmers…   While in Wasta, I also interviewed Ray Olsen, who had been on his ranch for three generations.   His grandparents had come from Norway and established the beginnings of the ranch here in 1889 (you can still see  wagon ruts nearby from the  early settlers heading across).   The family originally homesteaded here on 160 acres, under the Homestead Act signed by President Lincoln.   Olsen added his would be the last generation on the land because, in part, it was becoming too hard for small ranchers to make a living off the land…   We then headed further east, just skirting the “Badlands” of South Dakota.   It is writtten the topography here is like:   “Hell, with the fire burned out.”