Well, after a rough first leg of the trip, we were finally glad to be getting towards parts of our trip that we were really excited to see ie the Badlands. We left our crappy KOA campsite late in the morning to allow Scott and I to get some rest, and then started off on our easy 4 hour drive for the day. I have never been to South Dakota before, but the eastern side of the state is totally flat and full of farms and cows. It was pretty cool to see so much across the horizon. We aren’t used to that in Ohio where it seems like there is always something blocking the views.

We stopped at a cool rest area that had a couple Native American statues that were incredibly beautiful and had a gorgeous view of the Missouri River.

We continued on our drive across the state of South Dakota, finally entering the Badlands. If you’ve never been here before, it’s pretty wild to see the landscape change so drastically from prairies to towering spires and buttes. The Badlands got their name a long time ago when people were traveling across the country to head West. As I said, the landscape changes dramatically in this area. It’s hot and dry, only getting an average of 16 inches of water each year. Badlands National Park is also home to a large mixed-grass prairie land.

Scott and I love learning about the places we are visiting; their history, the science behind how things were formed, etc. We learned that the Badlands were formed 69 MILLION years ago when an ancient sea stretched across the area we now call South Dakota. Tons of fossils can be found in the area. The Badlands erode rather quickly compared to other areas nearby, at an estimated 1 inch per year. According to our sources, the Badlands will be completely flat in 500,000 years! It’s weird to think that that could ever happen.

We drove the camper through a few miles of the National Park to get to our campground at Cedar Pass Campground, right in the middle of the most beautiful scenery. Here’s a few photos of our camping area-

We set up the camper, then headed back out to explore the area. We did a short hike, which we dubbed “Rattlesnake City” due to the constant rattling we heard in the brush near us. We did encounter one rattlesnake, which was a little scary. Scott, being the big strong man he is, ran past it quickly, leaving me to fend for myself. LOL. We got back in the truck, and drove the whole way through the northern part of the park. The southern part lies inside the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and is actually co-managed by the government and the Oglala Lakota Nation. This area of the park is pretty undeveloped, with rough roads and impassable at times.

There’s a TON of wildlife in the area. Bison were reintroduced, and we saw a few of them roaming. We also saw Bighorn sheep, a ridiculous amount of prairie dogs, and a bird that was super cool but we never figured out the name.

I could go on forever about how cool this National Park was, but I won’t. It’s 100% worth the trip out, and we plan on coming back in the future.