Monday morning 82* and sunny at 8am. Relaxed a bit, soaking up this spectacular area and reminiscing on our last morning here at Custer State Park. 🎶 “On the road again”, 🎶 by 10:30.
Back to lonely roads….sunflower fields, hay fields… rolled and bailed! Nothing for miles except for signs & billboards for “Wall Drug”, for 300 miles.
Finally the exit for Wall Drug! It has peaked our interest! It’s a ways off the Highway, so they’ve got us. Parking lot just for truckers, & RV’s! Big tourist area! The World’s Largest Drug Store since 1931! Ted & Dorothy Hustead started this drug store & offering travelers free water. It has survived the Depression and still family owned and continue to run the business. Home of $0.05 Coffee & free ice cold water! We walked in & out of all the stores and I got out of there with only spending $0.82! 🤣😇😱 Can you believe it? It was a postcard and stamp for my friend Erika, who talked Wall Drug up and asked every week, “is this the day you’re going?”, so I had to write it right there so it was post marked Wall, SD! I even FaceTimed her! 😂💕
The town of Wall, SD, gets its name from “The Wall” that stands between the lower & upper prairie, serving as a barrier to travel north & south. It’s a rugged strip that’s 1/2 to 3 miles wide, with spires. And ridges with twisting gullies. This is the Badlands! Erosion has carved the most rapid landscape changes then anywhere else in the world. Forming knife like edges, canyons, chimneys, pinnacles and turtleback mounds.
Wall is home to the National Grassland Visitor Center, the only visitor center for all 20 national grasslands in the United States. 🤦🏻♀️ So of course we stopped there and met Forest Ranger Max who gave us information and who I got my Junior Ranger badge from! These public lands are restored prairie landscapes managed by the Forest Service to conserve their natural beauty, ecological diversity, and sustainable productivity for generations to come. The Buffalo Gap National Grassland is public land and the Wall Ranger District manages the eastern half. The twenty national grasslands are part of the 191 million acre responsibility of the Forest Service.
2:06pm 8 miles from Wall, we entered Badlands National Park OMG 101*, very dry heat! My lips & legs look all cracked! 😳 Up & down the grassy prairie lands we see prairie dogs & deer grazing. As we traveled the Badlands Loop Road off in the distance massive rugged rocks, out of nowhere with nothing else around them. The peaks and valleys of delicately banded colors, change as we drive by as the sun hits them. We stopped at many overlooks & took a few short trails.
Badlands National Park 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles & spires. And the world’s richest fossil beds! It protects the largest mixed-grass prairie in the US. It’s wilderness area covers 64,000 acres and where the black-footed ferret was reintroduced. It’s the most endangered land mammal in North America. Lakota & homesteaders shaped this area. The bison played an important role for both.
3:05pm arrived at Cedar Pass campground 🏕
🤭 If you could only see both of our bubbles above our heads and we looked at each other in SILENCE! 🤣😫😂 Not one tree, brown crispy grass, no shade….gets better…dust & sand blowing …. wait for it…. the road only has a slight widening of the road for you to pull over as your camp site. Our stairs to get in and out of the trailer ARE IN THE ROAD! 🤦🏻♀️ Can you see us setting up not saying a word! We have power….no water hook ups but we’re prepared. AC on and set up and decide to go to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. Toured the exhibits & shop and got my Junior Ranger Badge. 👍 Went next door to so called “Lodge”… Cedar Pass Lodge…. Tim got a beer (Crow Peak fromSpearfish, SD), a $3.00 Diet Coke (refills included…wrong thing to tell me) 🥤😇 & a Buffalo meat taco! We pulled out our phones, notebook and agreed we can’t stay here 3 nights! So within 2 hours we were able to book a site across from our upcoming one at Cottonwood & got a nights refund for our last night here. It needed to be done within 48 hours and the guy at the check in booth was gracious and gave us a refund so he was just getting off work so we took him in to the town of Interior… population of 47 for a beer! Yes…. 47….. we were in the bad, bad, bad, desert Badlands! This is the first time in 42 years that we have ever cancelled a night like this BUT…..there’s a limit! 🤯🤬😆
Door Trail starts off as a boardwalk through a break in the Badlands Wall and this is the door, then is walk at your own risk with drop offs and signs …. Beware of rattlesnakes! 🐍 Window Trail is like a natural window into the Badlands with a view of the eroded canyon.
6pm 99* ~ After making dinner, deer were right next to our trailer… we had a walking happy hour and walked through both loops of this so called campground! We are making the best of it! At the far side there are pay showers! I haven’t seen them since the early 80’s! 😳 Bats flying all over the campground! At 8:30 we attended the Ranger lead program and low and behold it was Ranger Max we met earlier in the day at the National Grasslands Visitor Center and he recognized us. He’s a Paleontologist and did a talk and slide show on how rich in fossils this Park is. Interesting that 3-5 fossils are found daily in the park either by staff or visitors. Following there was a bonus night sky astronomy program. Very well done pointing out the constellations! The highlight of the night was when we saw The Starlink Satellites Train go by! How cool was that! 💫 We then went out to the Door Trail for some night photography of the beautiful night sky. 🌟(136 miles for today)!
Wednesday morning– we got up at 8am made breakfast outside on the road! Drove to the Minuteman Missile Facility but…. It’s closed on Tuesday’s (Mondays too)! So we stopped off at the Badlands Trading Post (only store/gas station in area)… yup Diet Coke time! Headed now to the Badlands Loop Road and saw a big herd of Bighorn Sheep grazing and on the cliffs with their babies. Ventured off on a dirt, rocky Sage Creek Rim Road for 18 miles to the end where there’s a primitive camp ground. Along the way bison that walked right in front and beside the vehicles. Most amazing site for both of us was when we got to the end, across a watering hole on the mountain side….over 200 bison grazing! They were all over. 🦬 🌲🦬 🌲 🦬 Magnificent! We were in aww! ☺️ We stopped at all the pull offs and just beautiful cliffs and formations! As we were heading back to the main road, it reminded me of “The Yellow Brick Road” seeing the city of Oz at the end….for way off in the distance you could see the Badlands at the end of the road! 😀 Stopped back at the Lodge and yes I filled up with another DC with my cup from yesterday! 😇🤦🏻♀️😱 Add it to my list! 😅 The truck is a dirty dirt mess!!! 😂 What a full day out adventuring. Made dinner and chatted with neighbors for about an hour then packed it up for the night! (91 miles for today) Big drive tomorrow! 😴 Good night all!
Follow Tim & Sandy's Adventures 