From the Badlands of South Dakota – We rapidly exited Rapid City this morning and headed east on I-90 to the northeast entrance of the Badlands National Park. We stopped at the visitor center to get orientated then headed along the scenic Badlands Loop Road stopping at most of the overlooks. The strange formations, created by wind and rain erosion, reminded me of Cappadocia in Turkey.
We opted to take the gravel road past the Pinnacles entrance road and were rewarded with great wildlife viewing. We saw a large herd of buffalo in the distance (about 100) and at the Roberts Prairie Dog Town, we saw hundreds of prairie dogs and three buffalo close by. We saw lots of birds in the park including a group of 12 white pelicans, meadowlarks, red-winged blackbirds, lark buntings, cliff swifts and a burrowing owl. That’s the ones we could identify. We were fortunate in that the recent rains and snow melt has created a lush green prairie that looks like Ireland.
After we exited the park we stopped for lunch at the iconic Wall’s Drug Store, built in 1931 and today more of an amusement park than a drug store and restaurant. The food was okay.
We backtracked west on I-90 past Rapid City and Sturgis, to Belle Fourche where we took US highway 85 north into North Dakota. This was the first time Rita and I have been in North Dakota and we spent the night in the town of Dickinson. Tomorrow Montana.
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