Badlands: A Good Name

Welcome to South Dakota. You're going to
be here awhile.

South Dakota is a big state, and it makes for a very long day of mostly boring driving. I see why The Corn Palace and Wall Drug are so popular. After driving through the monotony of flat and dry scenery for seemingly endless hours, any sign of civilization is exciting.

So the Corn Palace was interesting, but really not worth the somewhat tight drive through town it took to get there. It’s more corn art than a corn building. This year’s theme was kids and sport, so there was a kind of neat mural of a gymnast in corn that gave us a chuckle. We also had the always popular walking taco while we were there. I had no idea it was a nationwide phenomenon. I thought it was  Pa thing, but they even had special chip bags that gave instructions on how to make them.

Inside the Corn Palace.

The Corn Palace. 

Corn gymnast

Those crazy South Dakotins and what
they won't do with corn. Corn ball that
tasted liked a rice crispy treat. 

In South Dakota, the wind farms are replaced
with sunflower farms. Very cool how they all
"look" in the same direction and move as the
sun moves.

After burning an hour in Mitchell, we got  back on the road for 27 hours through the Badlands. Ok, I’m obviously exaggerating, in that it only felt like 27 hours because the scenery never changes. Just dirt and dead grass, and dried up lakes. I can’t imagine what it was like to make that trip on horseback or in a wagon. Ugh, I would have volunteered to be the main course for the Donner Party just to have it over with.

So then we hit Wall, SD, and the famous Wall Drug. It was amusing, and impressively large, but only marginally worth the stop. We left there later than we should have and decided we would look for a campground somewhere in the Black Hills, near Mount Rushmore and Custer State Park. Jim picked out a Passport American campground that sounded good and had a spot, so we headed that way.

Getting ready to cross The Missouri River.

Very scenic.

The jackalope, a common theme in these parts.

It took significantly longer and it was a fairly treacherous drive. First, let me tell you, when you miss a turn towing a trailer, it’s not as easy to just turn around and go back as it is in the family minivan. We had to go several miles out of our way to find a parking lot big enough to turn around in.

After getting on the right road, we wound our way up and down some fairly steep and scary hills (good practice for the drive to Yellowstone?) and drove past several lovely looking RV parks. Being that it was already close to 8:00, I was tempted to just stop in one of them and see if they had a space, but this one sounded nice. So we pressed on, through the cute little town of Keystone, and out the other side, up and down and around, through part of Custer State Park (who have a herd of buffalo!), and finally found our campground.

It’s really secluded and in a nature preserve. We’ve already seen several mule deer. No bison yet. After a few retries, we got the trailer parked and set up. We were already thinking we would stay here more than one night, but after the drive in, there is no way in heck I’m leaving tomorrow, so we are here for at least two nights. They have a pool and mini-golf, so the kids are happy.

Crossing the prairie. 

Maggie wants to go mining or rock hunting tomorrow, and she also wants to see “the heads”. I want to see bison! But I don’t want to drive!