Into the Badlands

June 24, 2018

We woke up to another rainy day in South Dakota.  And it was cold.  So I made breakfast and we amended our plan to leave a day early.  Our plan was to return the rental car (and not get stuck in the mud), then drive to Wall Drug for lunch.  After Wall Drug, we would explore the Badlands before driving to a hotel in Sioux Falls.

So over the rain!

Bacon and eggs. We Glamp!

For those unfamiliar with Wall Drug, it is the South of the Border of the Midwest.  You see signs for hours before you get there.  

The boys and a local.

Lunch was actually really good. They must have some sort of exchange program, because everyone who works here was from another country, and their name tags said their home country.

After lunch we went outside and took pictures in their sculpture gallery.

Wagons East.

Jackelope.

Side eye from our sceptic.

Inside there was an animatronic T-Rex, which came to life and scared the crap out of my kids.

Foosball, and you won a bouncy ball! Score.

Headed east.

"It was a heathenish place to be in," Uncle Tom said... "I think that when God made the world He threw all the leftover waste into that hole."  
                                                                    ~These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder

This quote was all I really knew of the Badlands.  It's from one of my favorite books, and is said by the author's Uncle who was one of the first settlers to cross through the Badlands.  Now, Badlands National Park is visited by a million people each year.  Not to overstate the experience, but the Badlands is the place on this trip that changed me.  Seeing these amazing formations, made from dry sedimentary rock eroded by wind and water, was not only beautiful, but really stirred my soul.  Who knew I would turn out to be a nature lover?

It's like being on the surface of the moon or Mars or something.

Cold and wet can't stop us!

The picture of me taking a selfie turned out better than the selfie.

I don't know where she gets it.

If you find yourself at Badlands National Park, be sure to stop by the Ben Reifel Visitor's Center.  There is a cool exhibit explaining the formation of the rock.  It is also the home of the Paleo Lab.  Visitors find fossils in the park on a weekly basis, and the lab is where all fossils are cleaned and studied.  Now, these are not dinosaur fossils, but rather they are the bones of the prehistoric reptiles and mammals that lived in the area.

This guy was cleaning a giant fossil inside a plastic house. At first I thought he must hate being in there, but then I realized he doesn't have thousands of people interrupting him to ask questions.

This woman was so patient. I'm sure she gets asked the same questions over and over.

wow!

You may think that Wall Drug and the Badlands National Park would be enough to fill one day, but no!  We had another, less busy national site to visit. Rob was especially keen to visit the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.  Unfortunately, there is only one missile silo that you can actually go into and because of construction, the parking lot was not RV accessible.  So we had to settle with just the Visitor's Center, which Rob walked through quickly and declared he already knew this stuff.  Sigh.  I guess they gear these things towards people who are unfamiliar with our nation's nuclear defense strategies.  

Kids these days don't understand.

Ok, now that's a full day!  We drove a few hours to Sioux Falls, SD to stay the night in a hotel.  The kids were very happy to swim and less happy to share the pull out couch. Tomorrow: we visit the falls, more driving, and we see some of Rob's pilot-training friends!

We have them sleep sideways and put a pillow between them. This way they have more room.