We had a one week gap before our reservation in Spearfish so we did our second National Park trip as full timers and spent a week at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. It was our first week living two time zones away from our standard working hours. Not coincidentally, it was also the first week spent cursing the sudden appearance of an abundance of 6 AM meetings on our calendars.
The advantage to early beginnings at work was it left plenty of time to hop on the bike at the end of the day and gawk at the views like tween girls at a boy band concert. There’s something about being in the Badlands that restores the soul, although the constant rattlesnake warnings throughout the park abolish that rather quickly.
The terrain within the park varies from canyons of colorful rock to grasslands. Wildlife abounds, which is why one of those post work bike trips involved a close encounter with a buffalo standing on the side of the road. We also saw bighorn sheep, antelope, mule deer, more prairie dogs than we could count, and one snake, who we opted not get close to because the noise in the grass suggested he might have a rattle-y butt. When we took the highway back to the campsite, it was cool to see miles and miles of blooming sunflowers, which is prettier than the corn and soybean farms we see so often on our journey.
What We Did:
Minuteman Missile historic site – We visited the Minuteman Missile historic site and got to hear a presentation from a retired control facility operator. During the Cold War, there were 150 missile silos throughout South Dakota, and it was interesting that none were hidden. There’s also a decommissioned warhead at the Delta-09 silo, about ten minutes from the visitor center and offers a cell phone tour to explain the aspects of the site. Viewing a nuclear warhead that could melt concrete did recall the question why elementary school educators thought that duck and cover underneath a desk was going to provide any form of actual protection.
Prairie Dog Town, whose adorable residents aggressively shake down any visitor who paid $2 for a bag of peanuts to hand out like Halloween candy.
Prairie Homestead, a sod home built into a hill from when the government was giving land to entice farmers to settle in the new state. We learned that about 80% of the homesteaders that came to South Dakota in the early 1900s actually gave the land back rather than endure brutal cold winters, barren land insufficient for grazing cattle, and a lack of ability to get more than one bar of cell coverage.
Astronomy Lecture – The National Park offers ranger presentations in the evening, where we learned about bats as they hovered nearby. The highlight of our trip was the astronomy presentation, where volunteers point out constellations and the Milky Way with laser pointers before offering telescopes for viewing. Because there is no light pollution, we were able that evening to view Saturn, a shooting star, and the cloudy band of the Milky Way.
Where We Stayed:
Badlands KOA – To get to the campground, you need to drive the RV through the National Park, including some hilly sections of road whose lack of guardrails is even scarier than the prospect of finding a rattlesnake in my saddlebag. The formations of the Badlands aren’t contained within the National Park, so the scenery even within the campground at sunrise was breathtaking. This was the first park we’ve been to with absolutely zero cell coverage and thankfully, their wifi worked as promised. The water was also the worst we’ve encountered at any campground (we defined the taste as “medical waste with hints of plastic and salt”), although the owner swore it wouldn’t kill us.
Where We Ate:
To say dining options were non-existent was no exaggeration. The nearest drug store was 80 minutes away, the local “grocery store” didn’t sell any produce, and the closest town to the National Park is Interior, SD, with a booming population of 49. We did have lunch on our last day at Wall Drug. In addition to being a purveyor of South Dakota themed trinkets and the site of the world’s largest jackalope statue, they also make a maple doughnut you would slap a prairie dog for.