Badlands

Saturday, June 2, 2024

After breaking camp this morning, we drove our vehicles separately back to the large and level Custer State Park Stockade parking lot to hitch them together. We departed eastward along the main park road (SD-36) enjoying the Black Hills vistas and passing by more park facilities. We then turned north on SD-79 for a short while before catching SD-44 E for a long haul. We stopped to fuel-up the RV and ate lunch at Inferno (Food by Fire) in Rapid City before completing our 100-mile-long ride to the Badlands/White River KOA Holiday campground.

While hooking up at our pull-through full-hook-ups campsite, we discovered that the campground’s water hydrant was leaking profusely. Jane summoned a campground maintenance man who was not able to solve the problem without shutting down the water supply to other campers. So, with an extra hose, he hooked us up to the water supply of a vacant adjacent site. After this delay, we refueled the toad at Buffalo Corner in Interior. The old pumps there were a blast from the past, mechanical-style displaying fractional dollar amounts. We then drove a few miles to the entrance gate of Badlands National Park. 

Lunch in Rapid City

Immediately after passing through the park’s entrance gate, we briefly stopped at the Cedar Pass Lodge that offered souvenirs and dining then continued to the nearby Ben Reifel Visitor Center. (Ben Reifel was a Lakota Sioux that became a public administrator and politician.) Inside, we got our Passport book stamp and walked through more gifts on sale; there was little park info and no park movie.

We started our Badlands tour by traveling the shorter of the two paved roads in the park, the 8.5-mile-long section of SD-240. Our first stop was Cliff Shelf where we took a short loop hike to view the interesting eroded landscape. The multiple strata in the park were deposited 28-75 million years ago and have been eroded for the past 0.5 million years by the Cheyenne and White Rivers. The views were beautiful and we were suprised by the prairie vegetation. The green grasses and yellow wildflowers provided a pleasing colorful addition to the white and pink rock strata with blue skies and white clouds above.

—— Cliff Shelf Nature Trail —— 

Our next stop was at the Three Trails overlook. We selected the Window Trail and had more great views of eroded stratified pinnacles and buttes. Along the path, we spotted a beautiful mountain bluebird perched on a rock tower. From there, we continued on to Big Badlands Overlook for more great eroded views. 

—— Window Trail ——— 

——— Big Badlands Overlook ——

We then backtracked on SD-240 to the Visitor Center and took the longer park paved road, the 22-mile-long Badlands Loop Road. Our first stop here, was Fossil Exhibit Trail. Before starting the trail, we were distracted by the huge number of swift nests below the eaves of the display kiosk. Most nests were occupied and swifts were constantly entering and exiting the busy nests. 

The boardwalk trail was equally interesting. At various stops, models of fossils found at the park where displayed with info about the varied creatures (a nimravid, dog, horse, alligator, titanothere, and ammonite)  including which stratum they had been discovered in. 

——— Fossil Exhibit Trail ——— 

We continued our drive pulling over at several more overlooks with more great views of badlands.

—— White River Overlook ——— 

——— Panorama Point ——— 

—— Burns Basin Overlook ——— 

——— Homestead Overlook ——— 

——— Yellow Mounds Overlook ——— 

——— Pinnacles Overlook ——— 

As we were exiting the park, we spotted a group of bison grazing in the pasture to our left. We pulled over with others to watch. Eventually, several of the bison roamed toward the park road and crossed among parked cars behind us. While we were watching the bison, fenced-off cattle were grazing, and prairie dogs were popping out of their holes keeping a watchful eye on the growing crowd of cars. 

——— Badlands Bison ——— 

———  Prairie Dogs ——— 

We continued north on SD-240 for about 9 miles, crossing I-90 and entering the small town of Wall, home to famous Wall Drug. Wall Drug Store was founded by, and is still operated by, the Hustead family. Over the years, it was grown from a small local pharmacy to a huge tourist attraction covering many square blocks. The complex contains a cafe, an endless maze of shoppes, and a backyard mall.

We hustled through the shop areas to find the cafe and enjoyed dinner with the well-advertised free ice water and famous cake donuts for dessert. The wall of our dining room had original Western oil paintings on the wall, some by historical masters, as well as a life-sized carving of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from a huge cedar tree. 

After dinner, we explored the backyard mall and studied original old western photographs in an alcove. Suddenly, a loud booming cry sacred the bejeesus out of us. The life-sized animated T-Rex had awakened and was hungry. This convinced us to depart, so we proceeded directly to the car and drove back through the park and to the campground. 

———— Wall Drug ———— 

Back at the campground, Jane took a brief walk to see the White River; it was more mocha colored. Then, we both holed up for the evening.

—— KOA Campground and White River ——