We entered the new-to-us state of South Dakota on June 19, eager to see more of the Dakotas after a fantastic stay in the northernmost state in the Midwest. We’ve got a week in Hermosa, then 3 full days in Sturgis, to see Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, the town of Custer, Deadwood, Badlands National Park, Needles Highway, and Six Grandfathers, now known as Mount Rushmore.
To break up the long trip from Medora to Hermosa, we had an overnight stop at Harvest Host location, Belle Valley Ancient Grains in Newell, SD, which felt incredibly rural but was just minutes off the highway heading south.
We learned about the ancient grains owner Brian is farming, and came away with whole Spelt and White Sonora Wheat that we’ll make into grain bowls and hot cereal.
Then it was on to Hermosa, with a butt-clenching 11 miles through construction cones on a highway with a speed limit of 75mph. You can imagine the number of cars that passed us after the construction zone ended. We’ve decided their honking and single-finger salutes are congratulatory celebrations of how well we navigated a tight lane with harrowing twists and turns, and we felt very special indeed.
But enough of that, and on to the touring. We settled in at Heartland RV Park, enjoyed a pizza and live music at the campground’s event center, and had a relatively quiet night (rain is loud when you’re in a metal can), then made our way to Badlands National Park the next morning.
It was quite cloudy and windy all day, but that didn’t deter us. We were on a mission to see something other than the rolling hills we’ve been driving over, and even before we reached the park, the landscaped changed. Immediately off the highway, the hillsides on either side of us opened to two massive valleys, with structures completely different to the ones we saw in Theodore Roosevelt.
We made a quick stop at the Visitor Center, where they told us we could find gas in the appealingly-named town of Scenic if we needed any, but when we found it, it had obviously been a dead town for years. Decades maybe. The gas station had a price of $5.55 per gallon, so we’re guessing the place drew its last breath back when Jimmy Carter was President. Luckily, Nippy is very sippy, so we didn’t need to fill up until evening.
Once we reached the first outcroppings, it was obvious we were in an entirely new landscape. The peaks were sharper at the top and more angular as they descended, with a softer, more “melted” look when we got up close.
The badlands here were created by runoff that washed into an inland sea as Colorado’s Rocky Mountains rose into existence. We could see the layers when we took a short hike into a wide canyon, and the ground we were walking on was primarily the finest silt imaginable. Just like walking on talcum powder.
Other areas in the same canyon were like petrified mud, hard enough to create hills you could stand on but also dry and cracked on some surfaces.
Another surprise were the “yellow mounds” (called paleosols) that were left when the inland sea drained away and chemicals from its plants left staining of yellow, red, purple, and gray. Against the cloudy sky, they’re less striking, but when sunlight hits them they positively shine.
We could post a few hundred photos from the park, but we’ll spare you that and instead share a few from the absolutely bizarre town of Wall, our exit point from the park as we headed north to Hermosa.
Normally, commercials on TV and billboards along highways have zero impact on us. But Wall Drug Store is too smart for that, and the sheer number of billboards they’ve installed made it inevitable Simon would have to see what all the fuss was about.
Like Buc-ee’s, if you’ve been there, you know. Wall Drug Store is just…massive. Like, a full city block massive.
Want a billion shot glasses, T-shirts, cups, mugs, magnets, and every other form of tourist crap you can imagine, all wrapped up in interactive stuff that includes a jackalope the kiddies can sit on, a gorilla animatronic playing a piano, and an insane trio-plus-one of mechanical cowboys singing in a wild-west setting of howling coyotes and an upset bear? Wall Drug Store has all of it and much, much more.
We didn’t buy anything. We didn’t even try the “free water” the store so proudly advertises on the front façade. But we’ll remember Wall Drugs with the same fondness we remember that wacky gas station with a beaver as its mascot.
Tomorrow (subject of our next blog) would see us making the first of many trips into Custer State Park, and we’ll just say that at $20 for a seven-day pass, we absolutely got our money’s worth.
Veness Travel Media 