The Badlands

 

Sunday – May 16, 2021

Today’s agenda is the Badlands, so again, we went to town for breakfast and to post pictures to the blog.  The restaurant was really busy, no internet, so that process took a while (I had to use our hot spot), then we fueled.  It was probably 9:45 before we got on the road, and the Badlands is more than 100 miles away.  Once on I-90, we were in Wall Drug country, now.  We needed a map of the park so we stopped in the town of Wall at the National Grasslands Visitor Center, but it was closed, so we went to Wall Drug (we had planned on avoiding that, we had stopped in there on our one previous visit to this area in 1979).  But they had free maps, so that worked.  When we were there before, it was one long store, with individual shops.  Now it is a mall.

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We passed a blooming lilac bush in town, so it was worth the stop.  The bush was in front of a house, which I thought might be vacant, but Joe didn’t stop so all I had was the sighting, not even a whiff.

We stopped at a rest stop just before Wall, and they had this carving of the Faces on the outside.

As we got to the entrance to the Park, a small group of buffalo were grazing right there.

The dirt road in the Park was not nearly as good as the one in Custer.  This one is very wash-boardy.

The Badlands are a beauty of their own, different from anything else.  Some of the peaks, gullies and buttes reminded us of Bryce Canyon, some of the Rim in Arizona, but they are really unlike anything we have seen.  And they have a lot of different looks.  The Grasslands were on one side of the road, beautiful green, rolling hills, and just across the road were these gouges in the landscape.  Sometimes we were looking down on them, sometimes we were looking up, and toward the end of the park, we were right amongst them, with kids climbing on them.  For most of the day it was cloudy (it only sprinkled once though), so some of the colors were not as brilliant and they would have been in the sun.

At our second overlook stop, we were lucky to find a group of 4 Bighorn Sheep, rams this time, grazing just over a ridge.  Two of them were thinking about battling it out, but one gave up easily.

92, Joes pic.

A few miles further, we saw a single ewe.

Not nearly as many animals here, and I wasn’t going to take pictures of them today, but we got this great picture of a line of pronghorn, so I couldn’t resist.

The prairie dogs are everywhere.  There is a Prairie Dog Town, which covers acres and acres.  But they are about anywhere there is flat ground (prairies).  We read at one of the exhibits that Blackfooted  ferrets live off of them, and owls and foxes, I think, use their abandoned holes.  We never saw any ferrets but we saw hundreds of prairie dogs.  One town we went through on the way back, maybe Rapid City, had a huge statue of a prairie dog (I didn’t get a picture.)

We are amazed at the rolling hills in this state.  We don’t know what the east side of South Dakota looks like, but this west side is picture perfect, looks like a golf course.

The drive we did took us in and out of the Park a few times.  We kept trying to figure out where we had driven on our other trip here but just couldn’t remember.

While out of the Park, I spotted a fence row lined with lilacs.  I yelled stop, stop, and got to pick my first bouquet.  I am now a happy camper!

Back in the Park, some of the colors changed.  This at Yellow Mounds Overlook reminded us of the mustard-colored cliffs we saw in Death Valley.

And here, we saw Bighorn Sheep in their natural habitat, climbing and grazing on steep cliffs.  There were 6 here, all ewes.  That was exciting.

I took lots of pictures, but here are a few more looks of the Badlands.

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Joe thought we needed some pictures of the Jeep doing its thing, taking us places we want to go.

Finally we finished this drive and headed back to I-90. We left the park about 3:45.   Again, lunch didn’t happen today, so we went back to Wall.  The only thing we saw in town besides Wall Drug was a Dairy Queen and a Subway, so unwillingly, we went back to Wall Drug.  Their café seats 530, so there was plenty of room, but their food was mediocre, like bar food but not particularly good.  But we ate, then were on our way again.

At Rapid City, we took the Highway back to Keystone.  Keystone is a very touristy town, reminds me of Gatlinburg.  They did have a fascinating wood sculpture shop that looked like it was worth a visit.  Maybe tomorrow.  We drove on to the Iron Mountain Byway which would take us back to Custer State Park in time for a little wildlife viewing.  This road was not for the faint of heart.  17 miles, 314 curves, 6 tunnels, most of them too small for the RV.  Since we are in the Black Hills National Forest, I guess they call this a hill, not a mountain, but it was steep in places, with hairpin turns.

Here’s a picture of the road ahead on the GPS.

Near the bottom, there was a turnoff for a pretty little lake, beautiful setting.  Notice the huge boulder in the background behind the jeep.

Joe just had to drive through the puddle.  That’s me inside, waving, this time.

Just as we neared Custer State Park, we began to see deer.  Lots of deer.  And inside the Park, we spotted our first elk.  There were 6 bulls grazing in the trees.  Further down the road, we saw a single elk cow, and then 3 more cowa just before we left the Park.  We were afraid the elusive elk were going to remain elusive, but we found them!

We didn’t drive the whole Wildlife Loop tonight, since it was 8:00, we just drove across the top part of it on our way back to Custer.  The deer were out, some right beside the road, and again, in the front yards on the way into town.

Today’s wildlife count

Deer – 35 in the Park

Deer – 88 between the Park and home

Elk – 10

I didn’t keep track of the pronghorn today.

It was a long day, we drove 330 miles and spent 12 hours in the Jeep.  The weather was good, although rain was predicted in the afternoon, we just had sprinkles one time.  We are enjoying this country, today was another good day.  Tomorrow’s agenda is Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.  We saw Crazy Horse from the highway today, but will drive back to it tomorrow and check it out.  Oh, and Keystone again.  The rock shop where I buy my tumbling materials is located in Keystone, so we are going to try to pop in there and check it out.  We are hoping for a shorter day tomorrow, something less than 12 hours.