States Visited Today
This morning, Wednesday, July 8, 2020, we had a free breakfast, provided by the hotel, at Front Porch in Keystone, South Dakota. It was two pancakes for each of us. I ordered a side of bacon. The waitress was new and eager to please so we gave her a good tip.
About an hour and a half away was our first destination of the day, the Badlands National Park. The Badlands became a national park finally in 1978 after becoming a national monument in 1949. The area used to be used by the local Sioux Native American tribe for ceremonies as well.
Being in the badlands of South Dakota was like being in a different world especially going from the National Grassland surrounding it to the Badlands. The bottom most geological layer is Pierre (pronounced Peer) shale then there seemed to be intermittent sandstone and limestone layers. The formations are difficult to describe. I imagined that a seafloor rose and then slowly eroded the formations over time.
As we went through the park I started to become bored. It seemed like we were basically seeing the same thing for a long time. But, if you go, keep going through the park and keep stopping at each overlook. There are different views, perspectives, and formations to see all over the park. I had a prairie dog town marked on my Google Maps app, but it was five miles up an unpaved road and we felt like we would probably see a bunch of prairie dogs the next day while in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (spoiler alert!).
After leaving the badlands we went up the road to Wall, South Dakota and stopped at the locally famous Wall Drugs. Not only did we see many different signs for it on the way to the Badlands National Park along the highway, the road from the park to Wall had a bunch of signs too. There were all a combination of silly and informing the read of what to expect at Wall Drugs. And we never saw the same sign twice.
Wall Drugs is a massive shopping area with many little shops inside along with a cafe, old photos, Western art, and a few other silly things.
We ate an early dinner while there. Both of us had a cheeseburger and then vanilla ice cream Andrea and a chocolate milkshake for me. It was so thick that I had to eat it with a spoon. There was this silly thing too…they really liked jackalopes.
After Wall we headed for Bowman, North Dakota. There wasn’t much to see along the way, but it did look like there might be some badlands type areas that were much, much older and eroded almost completely away in the area.
Come back next time for our next days adventure in North Dakota!
Hollar if you see Us 