Badlands National Park, SD

From north to south, wide open roads, more of the middle, a bikers paradise and a wall of drugs – just some of todays adventures !

We are back on the air after a couple of days in Badlands National Park and here’s what we’ve been up to ……

Day 1 – South to Badlands National Park

From one National Park to another today, we got an early start and began our drive south – to a new state and a new National Park. Not exactly a “new” state as we visited South Dakota back on our 2009 tour. But a lot of it will be new territory for us.

Our road south, the poor old Theodore Roosevelt “Expressway”, is really just an ordinary 2 lane road and under a lot of repair. And they seem to have a weird way of undertaking their roadworks. “Roadworks next 58km” doesn’t actually mean they are “working” on 58km. Sure, they have it dug up so all the traffic is at crawling speed, but they work on about 5km of it if you are lucky. And then there is only one lane traffic where they work requiring stop/go signals and alternative use of the one available lane.

So we had two long delays and plenty of slow sections for the first part of our drive. But the countryside out here is just so amazing ! It is so vast and flat – a few rolling hills here and there – but it just goes on and on. And the roads are very long and straight. You come over a hill or around a rare bend and the road ahead just disappears into the distance. You get to that point in the distance, another bend or rise, and there is another long and straight road ahead. You just cannot capture it in pictures !

We made the border – North to South Dakota – out in the middle of nowhere – on US85 and just beforehand had driven through the seat of one of the smallest counties in the nation, Amidon – it has an estimated population of 20 people !

A little about South Dakota – It is the 40th state of the Union, established 2 November 1889. It’s not totally clear if it is the 39th state to be admitted to the Union (U.S.A.) or the 40th. Both North Dakota and South Dakota gained statehood on the same day, November 2nd of 1889. On this day, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison signed papers admitting both states, but which papers were signed 1st is unknown. North Dakota is usually considered the 39th state and South Dakota the 40th based purely on alphabetical order.

But it is the centre of everything out here too. A few days ago in North Dakota we stopped at the “Geographic Centre of North America”, that is, the USA and Canada combined. Today we found the “Geographic Centre of the Nation”, the centre of the 50 US states. This is in the town of Belle Fourche, SD. Belle Fourche is the geographical center of the United States of America, designated in 1959 and noted by an official marker and sheepherder’s monument called a “Stone Johnnie”. The monument itself is in a more convenient location – the information centre in town !

From here we turned south east and joined I90 to push on to our goal – Badlands National Park. We passed by a town called Sturgis, which is the “motor cycle capital of the world”. Each year in August there is a festival which attracts bikers from all over the country – “10 days and nights of Riding, Food, and Music. 500,000 riders, concert fanatics, and street-food enjoyers attend the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally every year” – 2020 will be its 80th year !

A little further along, we stopped at the Black Hills visitor centre for coffee. The hills in the area are known as the Black Hills. The name “Black Hills” is a translation of the Lakota Pahá Sápa. The hills were so-called because of their dark appearance from a distance, as they were covered in trees. We then started off on our last part of the drive.

Back in the Depression, in a little town called Wall, South Dakota, a businessman, Ted Hustead, bought a shop/pharmacy in the town of 231 people “in the middle of nowhere”. Suffering like all businesses at the time, he tried to think of a way to attract more business. His wife suggested they offer free ice water during the summer to travellers along the road and also 5c coffee. He constructed billboards along the road for miles to advertise his offers. Well, his idea paid off and as they say, the rest is history.

His shop now takes up a whole block, is packed with tourists and there are vast car parks nearby. They still offer free ice water and 5c coffee today.

We drove the last few miles to Badlands National Park and arrived about 4pm. We are staying in Cedar Pass Lodge, the only accommodation (other than campgrounds) in the Park. Although basic – small log cabins – they are newly refurbished and comfortable, though the wifi out in the wilderness is a bit of a struggle – certainly not capable to deal with blogging.

Badlands National Park is comprised of sharply eroded buttes and pinnacles, along with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States. The National Park Service manages the park, with the South Unit being co-managed with the Oglala Lakota tribe. It contains one of the richest fossil beds in the world and with the constant erosion, more continue to be discovered. Around 1 million visit each year putting it around number 23 in popularity overall.

We settled in with a drink sitting at the back of our cabin watching the changing colours of the formations as the afternoon sun headed down. We then went to the lodge restaurant which is run by the local Sioux Indians. It is a bit basic – it closes at 6.30pm (in fact it closed at 6.20 tonight !) but the food was good. For starter we shared a local delicacy, an Indian Taco – which is a bit like a pizza – but frybread, topped with buffalo meat, tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese and olives and finished with salsa and sour cream. Very tasty. They were out of our first choice for main so we had pasta. Way too much so we succumbed to the American tradition of “taking a box” – leftovers packed in a container to take away ! That will do nicely for a meal tomorrow !

After dinner we sat and watched the sun go down and the colours on the formations change some more. We love the National Parks !

Tomorrow we will do the loop scenic drive and a few of the walks in the park …..

Day 2 – Exploring the Badlands

Well, we failed rule number 1 from “National Park Basics 101” and didn’t get up early to take advantage of the good weather !

The weather forecast was for cloud and rain later in the day however it arrived much sooner than expected. We had our breakfast in sunshine on our back verandah then made our way back to the start of the loop drive – not very far – but whilst there was some sun to the east, the clouds were already moving in from the west. It did make for some interesting contrasts in the sky though.

We stopped to do two short walks – the “Door” and “Window” trails – and made a couple of other lookout stops then made our way along the scenic loop drive. We were early enough that there were not a lot of cars or people around at this stage – by midday, the tour buses had arrived and there were lots more “day visitors” – so we were able to pick and choose where we stopped.

As we got into the latter part of the loop, the dark skies and rain ahead led to us turning back and retracing our steps – it at least gave us a different view of the formations we had seen but without the rain as well. We drove back then headed out of the park altogether, back to I90, to visit another National Parks site just across the interstate.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic site details the bases which were established in this area to combat the potential threat of nuclear war back during the Cold War. Underground silos were built containing nuclear missiles ready for launch, should a threat arise. We visited a similar base near Tucson, Arizona on our 2012 tour. Luckily they were never used and have since been de-commissioned but the story is very interesting. Reading some of the instances – on both sides – of near misses to a nuclear war is a bit shattering ! One example was when a training video was incorrectly interpreted as an actual nuclear strike – luckily there were enough cross checks in place !

Whilst we were at the missile site it started to rain so we drove back to our lodge and had an afternoon coffee on our back verandah and watched the rain change the colours of the formations. The weather changed as the wind picked up and the sun started to make some spasmodic appearances so we decided to drive back out to a couple of the overlooks we had been to this morning to see if we could get any sunny shots. We certainly got some different light !

And here is a timelapse of the changing skies and the effects on the formations visible from our cabin while we were out …

By late afternoon it was quite windy and cool and after a brief sit outside to have a drink before dinner, we decided it would be warmer actually having dinner and trying to sit outside later.

Dinner was simple but tasty – we both had a chicken dish which had not been available last night – and we didn’t need a box tonight ! We wandered back to our cabin and managed to get a bit of sun to sit outside – but only briefly before the clouds rolled in again. It was much too cold so we went inside and sat at our back window with a last drink to take in the view.

In terms of “scenic views from our room”, Badlands would certainly rank very highly on our national park lodge stays ! We have probably spent more time here just sitting and looking at the view than we have on many of our past lodge stays.

Tomorrow we have some familiar sights to see as we head further south in South Dakota !

Today’s Tour Trivia – Pierre, South Dakota is the only state capital in the USA that doesn’t share at least one letter with its state name.