Wall, South Dakota Badlands

It was hard to leave the gorgeous pine trees, clear streams, and the intimidating granite boulders and mountains of the Black Hills. We stopped in to see the infamous Wall Drug though, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. It was probably a great place for children or people with lots of money for souvenirs. I’m trying to down-size, so if it isn’t small, multi-purpose, and useful in my Casita travel trailer, I don’t need it.

Then we drove south along a few miles of rolling hills of green prairie grass. . .until the Badlands suddenly appeared. Talk about culture shock! Unfortunately, the sun was in the west but still plenty high enough to wash out lots of the color. We drove to the west end of the Park, beside some prairie dog towns, and found this huge herd of bison.

Fortunately, we headed back east & at least got the sun behind our cameras.

Click on any of these photos to go to the Picasa album of even MORE Badlands photos.

We stayed at the Cedar Pass Campground, located toward the east end of the Park and attended an informative show presented by the Park Service about the night skies over the Badlands.

Unfortunately, the moon was full that night and washed out some of the usual visible scenes in the night-time sky. Hearing that the rattlesnakes come out at night had me concerned with Kira trotting around to do her duties, but thankfully we never saw any snakes.

The temperature dropped rapidly after the sun went down, and with the low humidity, it was perfect sleeping weather with the windows open.

The Badlands are amazing, but I didn’t mind leaving there, even for the "miles and miles of more miles and miles" (from Red Skelton) of grassland which we must travel across to get home.