Day 6 - The Badlands

The landscape begins to change dramatically after leaving Mitchell, SD.  Corn and soybean fields are replaced by crops that require less rainfall such as wheat or to open range land for grazing cattle.  This is where farmers are called ranchers and land is measured in sections instead of acres.  A section is a square mile or 640 acres and a typical rancher might have several sections - maybe 5, 10 or 15 sections. They might own some and rent land from other land owners or the federal government which owns a lot of western land.

Some of the favorite landscape across I-90 are the billboards for Wall Drug. We'll visit Wall later but we must have passed 100 billboards similar to these.

As we proceeded west, the outside temperature rose. When we stopped for lunch, the wind felt like a blow dryer. High temperatures for the day reached 114 degrees. Whew, thank goodness for A/C.

Finding the Badlands is easy.  Simply head west along I-90 and get off at exit 131 at Hwy 240.  Hwy 240 is about a 20 mile loop that takes you through the Badlands National Park. This is where choosing pictures will start to get tough.  The Badlands area was formed by a shallow sea 75 million years ago. As the water receded, fossils, and the current landscape, were left behind for us to admire and enjoy. The scenery is unlike anything we can find in the Midwest.





Well, you get the idea.  The Badlands offer some great Scenery.  It's easy to imagine why the bad guys would head to these hills to hide from the law men.

Here is our campground for the night.  This campground was about half way through the Badlands loop.  They advertised trees for shade on every campsite but, as you can see in the picture, their definition of a shade tree is a bit different than mine...oh well.  We parked behind Bob and Karen and had a great dinner topped off by home-made ice cream.  The temperature dropped to around 100 degrees.  Thank goodness for plug-in electric so we could run the A/C.

The next morning we finished the Badlands loop...the western end of the loop tends to be a bit more rugged.  The end of the loop ends in Wall, SD, the home of Wall Drug.  Wall Drug is one of those tourist traps that you have to visit at least once. It came to be in the mid-1930's when the owners of the store were virtually broke.  They decided to try to lure travelers off the highway and into their drug store by offering free ice water.  Remember, this was the 1930's and cars did not have A/C, so a free sip of ice cold water was welcomed.  The plan worked and today Wall Drug stretches a full block long and actually offers real drug store items, but mostly, they are a large souvenir shop.

Carolyn and Karen scoured the aisles and found a few souvenir post cards while Bob and I relaxed and made new friends.

 So, after a sip of free Wall Drug water, we are off to Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore.