Badlands National Park

From Mitchell we continued west along Interstate 90 toward the Badlands of South Dakota. We continued to see signs for Wall Drugs – they are everywhere! Some are strictly informative.

Or they mentioned the many departments of the store.

Others are a blast from the past – free ice water was their original method of attracting tourists and the coffee is still only a nickel!

And some signs are just plain fun.

The signs definitely helped pass the time as the scenery didn’t change much! In addition to the Wall Drug signs I realized that I was seeing various fire engines beside signs for Firehouse Brewing – it was fun seeing the many different fire engines.

Eventually we crossed the Missouri River and noticed that the landscape changed to be more rolling hills than relatively flat – it made for a nice change.

Gas stations and a Mexican restaurant provided more great signs along the way.

In addition to signs there were cut-out sculptures in fields. I wonder if the stagecoach will reach safety before the Indians catch them?

One more sculpture and one more billboard before we reached the Badlands – dinosaurs are everywhere (including at all the Sinclair gas stations). And I’m sure the PETA people don’t know about this billboard!

 

Finally we reached Badlands National Park – both the Lakota and fur trappers considered this “bad land” to try to cross due to the extreme temperatures, lack of water and rugged landscape. Later pioneers and settlers also found it to be an extreme landscape – few stopped to settle but most continued on.  We drove the Badlands Loop Scenic Byway and stopped at numerous stops along the way – some were along the upper rim of the Badlands Wall and others were below the wall on the lower prairie. A fellow tourist took our picture – she had asked Charlie to take a picture of them (since he had a similar camera) and insisted on returning the favor.

Near the exit we encountered a huge prairie dog city – and had to dodge the crazy tourists stopping suddenly to take pictures!

It was rather late in the afternoon as we neared the park exit and saw this sign – but it wasn’t close enough to dusk for the bighorn sheep to be anywhere near the road.

After leaving the park we only had a short drive to our campground – we found a place to stay in Wall only a few blocks from Wall Drug! The campground was nothing special but allowed us to get up early the next morning and have breakfast at the famous drug store – which has grown from one storefront to a complex covering several blocks!

We ordered a typical diner breakfast at the counter, poured ourselves some good coffee and they quickly called our number! It was good food (especially considering the size of their dining room) and we were soon on the road to our next adventure!

Click here for general South Dakota pictures (you’ll see this album often as it covers several days of miscellaneous driving pictures), click here for Wall Drug signs, click here for the town of Wall and click here for the Badlands.