Across Covid America - Tour of National Parks 2020 - Day 7

Day 7

12633 mileage

8:15 A.M.

8691 steps

$30 All Access Pass savings 

Woke up in Box Elder, South Dakota. Apparently a Box Elder is a tree. Who knew? If you are anywhere within a 100 miles of this location, you will see billboard after billboard advertising something called Wall Drug and it's 'Free Ice Water.' Not one to be deterred from checking out the local flavor, we head right towards it. I mean, it's on the way to our destination of the Badlands, so why not?

If you are ever interested in the largest tourist trap all in one location, run out to Wall Drug. I mean they have everything you can think of! T-shirt shops, homemade fudge, gift shops, Olde Time photography, dinosaur models, and the touted Free Ice Water. It was fantastically done up in the old west style which included an animatronic country western band. The coffee was only 5 cents and they had really great old fashioned donuts, nice and fluffy.

One of the stores was selling these great bandanas with a map of the Badlands on it. It came with directions for wearing it twelve different ways and was made of water wicking material. Wouldn't they make great masks? So easy to just pull up when needed and then back down so I can breath. After scooping up tchotskes and great puzzles of the area, it's BUFFALO TIME!!! 

I have been teaching my students about this mistreated icon of our great nation. I would tell students how men would climb aboard the new Transcontinental rail lines packed in so tightly, some sat on the roof. Then they would ride out with their rifles to where the buffalo herds were grazing and shoot them down where they stood. And. Leave. Them. There. These once great herds were decimated to number in the hundreds leading to an endangered level. 

National protection and farming have once again revived their numbers, and it was incredible to see these majestic beasts roaming free once again. When I say free, I mean right next to your car, just trotting along the road and sometimes even IN the road. These things can span an entire lane of traffic, so the sight was incredible. 

And then there is my new spirit animal, the Prairie Dog. Prolific throughout the Badlands, these chirpy little creatures stand stock still observing their surroundings and alert others to danger causing them all to pop into their little holes. Even the Prairie Pups knew what to do. They were everywhere along the roads with plenty of signage warning you NOT to feed the Prairie Dogs. We even saw a spot where you could camp right in the middle of a field full of them. What does one do when you wake up to find a Prairie Dog in your tent?

Time for some Badlands driving. We came in at the Pinnacles Entrance and could have gone right or left for some attractions. We went right to start our day of driving from one overlook to another. The landscape is so surreal, full of sharp peaks and deep valleys. The rock has these variegated stripes running through it, making for interesting colors. We spotted some big horn sheep at one of the stops. With my zoom lens I could get within 100 yards and still make it look like I was standing right next to them. They casually nipped at the sage not paying us a lick of mind. When they came to the edge of the cliff they just kept going almost straight down into the valley. So cool!

After Sage Creek there wasn't a whole lot to see. We continued on the loop coming around to the small town of Scenic on a not-so-very-nice road that never seemed to end. We finally reached the Interior Entrance where we picked up more stops to get out and explore. Turns out we should have gone right to Sage Creek and then came back to where we started to see the left hand side of the loop. It would have cut down on a lot of driving time. 

Didn't hurt. It's why we are out here in the first place, right? To see the land. 

Today marks one complete week of travel, so you know what that means? We needed to do laundry. Thankfully our hotel had one on site. What a joy it is to spend a few hours on vacation watching the dryer go round and round. We hid our excitement in a DQ Blizzard.