Luverne MN —> Pipestone National Monument —> Badlands National Park —> Rapid City, SD

Another early start from Luverne, Minnesota. The day was off to a smoother start since we wrote out the beginning of the directions the night before, and finished them in the car once we hit the road. After breakfast we loaded up the car and were on our way to Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota, about 30 minutes. The road there was super open and flat, with fields and fields of windmills and farmland. We stopped at the Pipestone visitors center, got our cancellation stamp, and explored the exhibits that told us about the importance of the red quartzite to the Plains Indians, and how the Dakota Sioux controlled the quarries since the 1700’s. The pipes are made from the durable, yet soft stone and have been found from as long as 2,000 years ago. In the visitors center they have booths for demonstrations of pipe carving and a museum of different types of pipes from various tribes. Pipestone has a quarry that still mines quartzite, but they also have a circle trail that brings you to Winnewissa Falls at the halfway point. Unfortunately they had some flooding at the falls, which made the waterfall bridge closed for repairs. We completed the half-circle to the waterfall and along the stream, which was very beautiful and surprisingly very quiet and peaceful. We needed to be selective with our time, since we wanted to spend a big chunk of our afternoon in Badlands National Park. 

Cue “On the Road Again”. About 5 hours to Badlands, a significantly lighter day for us! Now, the next thing that happened I think qualifies this as a “true Roadtrip”. As we started seeing signs for Wall Drug, literally as soon as we crossed into South Dakota, we eventually did need a stop to use the bathroom. Our stop was at a true roadside attraction, the “Corn Palace- The Only One in the World!” I can’t believe that billy agreed to stop- me on the other hand, is terrible when it comes to tourist traps and infomercials! The Corn Palace, in Mitchell, SD truly looks like a Palace, with murals on the outside made of ears of corn! Inside they have photo ops and a huge gift shop. The puns were on point, I could b(ear)ly contain myself! We continued on our way, making sure to pay attention to each Wall Drug sign along the way. We had the opportunity to do an “instagram takeover” for my best friends Instagram page (follow her @3bavarosinacar to follow her family’s adventures!) on one of her favorite stops, Wall Drug. We had a blast snapping pics out the windows and teaching ourselves how to post a story on Instagram (we fail with technology most of the time lol). More about this to come later in this post.

We continued driving and came into Buffalo Gap National Grassland, who’s expansive grassland, with had various colors of greens and yellows and numerous cows. This landscape made what we saw next even more dramatic. We approached Badlands national park, which has these massive mounds that just seem to pop out of nowhere. It makes you ask “where did this come from? How did this get here?”. 

The excitement was unreal, I felt like I was fulfilling a destiny of mine by being here. When I was in 4th grade, my teacher (Ms. Algava) had us make a National Park video in groups, where we researched a National Park, wrote a story line, and learned how to shoot a stop animation film. The park my group did was The Badlands. Our story followed me and 2 other classmates who fell into a drop off on the Badlands “wall” into a cave where we found a group of endangered black footed ferrets. We rescued them and brought them to a park ranger at the end of the story. Somehow, even though 20 years have gone by, all of these details are still vivid in my mind. So as we approached the Northeast Entrance, we took the obligatory sign photo before the entrance. The excitement continued to build. Of course, once we went through the entrance, the first pull off was. . . The Badlands Wall. I walked the boardwalk to the overlook, I’m not sure I have words for it. Expansive mounds with various colors, these reddish pink lines that look as if someone took a paintbrush and painted a horizontal line across each pinnacle and butte. Grasslands in between and on top of each, which are so tall it feels like you are in the Grand Canyon and expect there to be a river at the bottom, but there isn’t and it just continues on and on for almost as far as you can see.

We then drove into the park to get to the Ben Reifel visitors center. We got our cancellation stamp, filled up on water, and decided where to go on our hikes. We decided on the short Cliff Shelf Trail, which was a boardwalk that went up a little elevation with some stairs through a juniper forest and looped back to the car.  At the tallest point it overlooks the White River Valley. Apparently the geography in that particular area traps the moisture that allows the pine trees and other vegetation to grow. We didn’t see another place like this in the park. We then drove to the next lookout and walked the window trail that has a stunning natural window overlook. Once we parked the car and got out to get our cameras and backpack, we noticed something standing on one of the rocks in the shade, it was a bighorn sheep! It was standing so still that we weren’t sure if it was actually real! It hung out there in the shade for awhile and we stared at and took pictures of it for probably 15 minutes. Once we got back from the walk (it’s super short) it had walked around the butte and down to eat some grass.

So Badlands National Park was named after what the native Americans and French had called it- which basically just meant bad lands. This is due to the extreme heat and desert like conditions in the area. To say that it was hot during our visit is an understatement. It was 95 degrees and the sun was blazing, we were completely drenched just from the 20 minute hikes, so we took a few rest breaks in the AC of the car or in the visitor center. Gabby does not do that great in the heat. 

We were going to do the door trail, however, with the sun beating down we figured it was time to get out of the direct sun. If it wasn’t so hot out, we would have really considered doing the notch trail, which has more elevation and you climb up a ladder to get to the top, which sounds pretty epic. Instead, we drove through the rest of the park, stopping to have a snack and snap some photos along the way. We saw prairie dogs popping out of their homes in the ground, with their high pitch squeaks that billy says sounds like dog chew toys. We stopped at the yellow mounds with expansive views of buttes and mounds with varying colors of yellow, pink, and almost red. The sun started setting and we started to make our way toward wall drug. As we were maybe a half mile from the park exit (you could see it), billy says “oh shit!” and stops the car in the middle of the road. I’m thinking there’s something wrong with the car, and he points to his left and there are 2 bison in the field grazing maybe about 150 feet from the road. We pulled over and walked over to the side of the road and stood in awe, taking some photos, watching the sun set and listening to them breathe. 

We finally made our way back to the car and to the town of Wall to visit the famous Walk Drug. We got there as the sun was setting around 8:15 or so. Unfortunately, the web site said they were open until 9, but it was only the main gift shop that was still open. We meandered around the store, seeing the advertisements for Dr. Feelgood’s Tonic and mounted heads of bison and jackelopes. We admired the old country decor of stained glass and wood. We will have to visit again to see the dinosaur and get our 5 cent coffee and free ice water!

We got back in the car to complete the last leg of our journey to Rapid City, SD. Another day of rolling into another hotel late without a reservation, we got to an econolodge a little after 10pm. 

-GW