The Badlands SD. May 10 & 11

Campsite at Badlands

Rolled into Badlands NP after another long car day.  We camped in Cedar Pass campground right at the foot of the mountains.  Perhaps mountains are the wrong word for these cliffs.  The whole place has the feeling of being on Mars.  Crevices and peaks, side by side going on for miles.  Not much greenery here.  We had a torrential rain storm the night we arrived and it extended into the next morning.  The weather forced us to find something to do inside, so ended up at a Wall Drug.  A tourist trap in the middle of SD, it is advertised with road signs for miles before you get there ala South of the Border.  It did the trick though and the weather greatly improved by late morning.  We drove through the park and saw the scenic overlooks and did some of the shorter hikes. We left Thursday morning via some of the more remote portions of the park, checking out the wildlife as we went.  On our way we stopped at the National Minuteman Ballistic Missle site.  While there are no longer ballistic minuteman missles in SD at one time there were 25000 nuclear armed missles in the ground here.  The site had a lot of history of the arms race, most of it very sobering.  We then drove out to see one of the silos. I pray the people in charge of these weapons never use them!    Heading to the Black Hills.

Hiking in The Badlands