Sunday was another long travel day, though thankfully one with nice weather. We drove from Minneapolis to Badlands National Park, which was primarily hours of heading directly west on I-90 through corn fields. Of course we saw the notorious "Wall Drug" signs, a series of billboards advertising a store in Wall, SD that started out as a drug store and now covers an absurd variety of stuff. Our first sign helpfully told us that we were "only" 335 miles to Wall Drug, and we passed by dozens more along the way. They did a pretty good job breaking up the monotony and keeping the ads humorous. Near dusk we got to the national park and had to drive a few miles through it to get to our campsite. This gave us a beautiful sneak peak of the scenery the park offers.
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| Sign #57 |
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| The bulk of the drive |
The weather on Monday was kind of wild; we woke up to 55 degrees and it was 98 by the afternoon. With the heat we decided not to do anything too ambitious, so we worked and planned to run some errands to the nearby town of Interior. Unfortunately Google was a bit out of date on the town, and one of the two bar/restaurants had closed and the general store hours had changed. With these things closed, we only managed to gas up the truck and pop into the now undisputed "Best Bar in Town" to cool off for a minute.
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| #1 place in town by default |
We got an early start on Tuesday, sticking to east coast hours, so that we could finish up work by early afternoon. Then we took a very scenic drive towards Wall, aiming to get groceries, dinner, and a look at the fabled Wall Drug. The drive to Wall took us along the Badlands Loop Road, which is the primary path through Badlands National Park. The 40 minute drive took us 3 hours from all the stopping we did at the scenic overlooks. In addition to the beauty of the Badlands wall, we also saw hundreds of prairie dogs, a few deer, 3 bighorn sheep, and a bison.
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| Bryn in the Badlands Wall |
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Bryn in the Badlands Wall
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| A canyon in the Wall |
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| Enjoying the incredible views |
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| A bison grazing near the park entrance |
Once we left the park and made it to the town of Wall, we checked out the giant dinosaur statue advertising for the Wall Drug exit. Next we did a grocery run before this store closed as well. Then we finally made it to Wall Drug. We explored the store for about 30 minutes before they closed. It is a very eclectic experience, and every room feels like a separate store. Finally we had dinner at a nearby restaurant and heading back to the camper. On way back through the park, we saw several people doing night photography, so we stopped at one of the overlooks and stargazed ourselves. The Milky Way was super vibrant this far from significant light pollution (though we didn't have the cameras necessary to capture it).
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| 355 miles later |
Wednesday we worked out after work (Bryn with an erg test, and Shawn with a bike ride up into the closest Badlands pass). After dinner we played the next scenario of Jaws of the Lion.
Thursday we did a couple of short Badland hikes, focusing on the eastern end of the Badlands Wall (our previous drive was on the more western section). The Notch was about a mile long and started by walking into a canyon. This hike included a small ladder section to climb out of the canyon notch, and at the top an incredibly windy view out over the lower plateau. The Window is a very short walk along an accessible boardwalk to an overlook of the Wall's primary dropoff into canyons. Finally we did the Door, which is a half mile long walk out into the Wall. It ended in a great vista surrounded by canyons. Our favorite was the Door, but the Notch was also a very cool hike as well (though a bit harder).
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| The Notch ladder |
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| Halfway through up the Notch hike |
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| The Notch view |
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| Climbing back down |
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| The Window |
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| The Wall |
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| A view past the Door |
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| Past the Door, in the Wall itself |
Friday we worked an early day, getting off work in the early afternoon Mountain Time. Then we went to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, checking out the exhibit halls and watching a ~30 minute video. The Great Plains region held many ICBMs during the Cold War (and still holds a smaller number of newer ones). The Badlands area has a decommissioned missile field, and you can separately view the visitor museum (which we saw this evening), a missile silo itself, and the launch control center (with a prescheduled tour). After the museum we drove over to Wall for dinner.
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| Defunct Cold War ICBM Facilities |
On Saturday we had a short travel day. We relocated from our Badlands campsite to one about an hour and a half away in Rapid City, SD. With such a short drive, we were able to add cardio workouts, some shopping errands, and a stop at the Delta-9 Minuteman Missile Silo. During that stop we let Percy explore the Badlands grassland (while on a leash). He was incredibly happy to hop around in endless hay. At night we went out into Rapid City to get drinks at Firehouse Brewing (who had been advertising for miles along I-90 with antique firetrucks) and dinner at Que Pasa Cantina. Bryn said we had to go because of their clever I-90 ads.
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| The actual silo itself |
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| Percy eats Buffalo Gap grass |
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