Badlands, South Dakota

Saturday, August 13

I spent the first part of the day stretching and doing a quick workout, as well as meeting another single woman just two campsites down who was traveling alone. Turned out she was from Germany, just north of Stuttgart!

We had a great conversation in German. Her name is Brigitte, and she comes to the U.S. almost every year to visit her sister in Michigan. But she takes 4-5 months and travels throughout the country, wherever she wants to go, in this cool little mini-bus that she ships over from Germany. Was lots of fun to meet her.

Then it was off to explore the Badlands, this time with the sun fully shining. Wow. More beautiful territory.

[N.B. - I recognize that I keep using the word “beautiful” to describe things I’m seeing. And I recognize that word might be a little tired by now. Perhaps I could substitute “awesome,” “gorgeous,” “breath-taking” or “stunning” – all of these would also fit.

Washington, DC – my home – is a beautiful city. Yet I am truly amazed at how many truly beautiful cities and natural treasures this country offers. It’s been a very powerful experience so far.]

And the Badlands are a fine example of this. I’ll stop “talking” now and just let the photos speak for themselves.

And once we’d made it through the Badlands highway, thoroughly impressed by what we'd seen, we headed on to the town of “Wall,” to finally see the famous/infamous Wall Drug. We had made it through 355 miles of roadside billboards along the way. By the time we finally got there, we felt like we absolutely had to stop - our curiosity was so piqued by now! The billboards say it’s the #1 roadside attraction in the U.S., as covered by the “Today” show, “Good Morning America,” “The New York Times” and many other prominent news outlets.

Wall Drug is 76,000 square feet of tourist attraction, including shopping, western art, jewelry, restaurants and even a chapel. The Hustead family settled in Wall, South Dakota in 1931 in a place they deemed “the Middle of Nowhere.” They built up the business, first by offering free ice water to weary travelers. Throw up a few hundred billboards in every direction, offer 5-cent coffee and a sense of western humor and you got yourself a bustling tourist attraction. See Wikipedia’s entry about it here. (Jeff, thanks for the tip on this one!)

We bought a postcard and a few trinkets, got our free bumper sticker and headed back over the Badlands highway to our campground.

Oh, and did I mention the bikes yet?

On the way back, we stopped to watch a bunch of yipping prairie dogs do their thing in the wild. 

We saw more beautiful scenery. And we had dinner with Brigitte and talked till late while sipping a – ahem – “few” glasses of wine.