Badlands National Park

We leave Rapid City and drive to Badlands National Park.   As we approach the park, the trees disappear and the landscape becomes more dramatic looking.  More austere, more barren.  Just grasslands and rock.  As we drive into the park we feel as if we have landed on another planet.

We are staying at Cedar Pass Campground – right in the park.  And it even has electric hook ups.  We are thrilled by the location – close to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center and with stunning views of the dramatic landscape right from our windows:  dry pink and tan striped buttes jagged against the blue sky.   

We go drive to the Visitor Center to get hiking information, Elle’s junior ranger book and, of course, get our passport stamped.  Next a short drive into the badlands.   Towering mounds and spires.  It’s like being on another planet.  Pink, brown and cream dry, wrinkled mountains.  We take a whole series of sunset shots but it is really hard to capture the vastness…

The next morning, we get up early before the heat and walk the very short Door and Window Trails (.025 and 0.75 miles respectively) before attending the 8:30 ranger geology route walk.  We learn that the badlands are made of sedimentary rock that is rapidly eroding.  This is one of the few parks where one is allowed to wander off trail because everything is eroding so quickly you can’t do any damage.  During the walk, Elle starts scrambling on the buttes.   

After a quick meal at the restaurant by the Visitor Center we decide to drive the Badlands Scenic Loop drive around the park.  It has gotten too hot to do any hiking.  For us, ninety-degree heat and hiking do not mix.  There are multiple scenic overlooks to pull out and take pictures. The drive is stunning.  Views are amazing.  Striped buttes, canyons, spires and hills.  Otherworldly.

We take a short detour to Wall Drug, the famous tourist attraction in the middle of Wall, North Dakota, at the edge of the park.   Wall Drug is famous basically because the originally owner in 1931 was a really good marketer.  The signs announcing the coming of Wall Drug start well before you arrive and the signs keep on coming. 

 By the time you arrive in Wall you feel you must stop just to see what all the fuss is about. So we do.  And we are not alone.  Busloads of tourists are everywhere.  It’s like a giant general store full of every ticky-tacky tourist item you can imagine as well as a restaurant and ice cream parlor and a coffee shop.  We return to our campsite to sit outside and enjoy the dramatic views.