Badlands

From Wikipedia – The Badlands are a collection of buttes, pinnacles, spires, and mixed-grass prairies. The White River Badlands contain the largest assemblage of known late Eocene and Oligocene mammal fossils. The wildlife includes bison, bighorn sheep, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs.

Established: 11/10/1978
Annual Visitors: 1,008,942
Size: 242,756 acres

Badlands National Park – October 5, 2020

Last night Gary was making me grilled cheese sandwiches on our propane stove/grill in the backyard of our cabin and he looked up to see a doe and twin fawns, inside the fencing of the hotel. Maybe she wanted dinner too?

We left Custer, SD after three nights here, including a day of rest. We never got in the car all day yesterday. A very rare and needed occurrence.

Gary spotted white tailed deer in many different locations this AM, beginning with his and Rangeley’s morning walk. By 8am, as we drove through Custer State Park again on our way to Badlands NP, we had spotted over 30! The wild turkeys were out in full force too!

Wall, SD is the home to Wall Drug since 1931. I had not heard of this store…well now an entire block. There are signs for 40+miles before you reach the town of Wall and 2 million people visit the store each year. That’s twice the visitors of Badlands NP! And the park is only 8 miles away!! After seeing all the signs, I just had to stop in and see what all the fuss was about. In the store’s beginning, the Great Depression set in and the store wasn’t always doing well. The owners decided to hand out ice cold water to travelers and they began to have a repeat following which has lasted to date! They currently serve home cooked meals, bake homemade donuts and fudge, have many gift shops promoting South Dakota and the surrounding attractions, a very large leather and boot shop, a lot of framed historic pictures of the area and its people of the past, and a chapel… all for travelers going through the town of less than 900 residents. Wall was named for the location of the town. It’s at the “wall” or end of the Badlands. It was a fun touristy thing to do and Gary buying some fudge for us topped off a great way to stretch our legs! Pictures attached.

Inside Wall Drug, this is not even half of the boots for sale.
Gary’s helpers last night in Custer.

Badlands NP was a fun and diverse area to drive through. The entire south portion of the park, referred to as the Stronghold Unit, lays within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and is closed. We only explored the northern section from the Pinnacles Entrance, driving west to east and exiting at the Northeast Entrance. We stopped at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center on the far east side of the park. As with almost all the parks so far this trip, the visitor center/information building was closed due to COVID but a ranger was outside answering questions, handing out maps and letting us into the gift shop, one by one, as others exited. We got our pin, post card and stamped our book. Before the visitor center we saw some amazing views. Millions of years of colorful geological formations. We got out at many of the overlooks. Rangeley, again, was not allowed on any trails. See all the pictures in the many slide shows we put in our journals.

A lookout in Badlands National Park
Elizabeth taking her own pictures
Winds were very high on the plains
Elizabeth at the far left
The Yellow Mounds
Notice the plateau of grasslands that have not yet eroded away.

Geologically the tops are called Sharps Formations deposited 30 million years ago.
At the visitor center

A Bighorn Sheep walking past our car. This photo was taken with Elizabeth’s phone, no magnification!
A second one followed close behind and also was just a couple feet away from our car.
A herd of Bighorn’s were down the road. These guys were out in a field.

I loved the Prairie Homestead Historical Site which is just outside of Badland’s Northeast Entrance. The 160-acre, 1909 sod home and barn were built by Ed and Alice Brown. It is one of very few sod homes still in its original condition, except for maintenance to keep it that way. This location is also home to the only place in the world (according to them) that has a White Prairie Dog Town! These cute little rodents were so fun to watch. See slide show of the homestead and the rare White Prairie Dogs attached!

Prairie Homestead owned by Mr. and Mrs. Ed Brown, 160 acres, built in 1909.
The Brown’s barn
Used to boil livestock and large laundry loads.
The Browns

Rare white prairie dogs
The Brown’s barn being protected by the white prairie dogs

We crossed over into the Central Time Zone just before our stop for the night in Murdo, SD. We will be on the road again tomorrow breaking up our over 900-mile road trip from Badlands NP to our next destination: Indiana Dunes National Park. After that, we head to Millersburg, Ohio for a four-day visit reuniting Rangeley with his dog mom, Roxy and his Amish breeder family who we met in June and whom I have become quite close to via letters. We will be enjoying Frogmore Stew at their house, riding in a buggy to visit their extended family, helping with chores and enjoying their 2- year-old daughter, a herd of sheep, a donkey, two horses…you get the idea!