Badlands and a Little Kitsch

Today was a busy day.  We woke up, had breakfast then headed out to Badlands National Park and Wall Drug.  The drive out to Badlands from our hotel took about an hour, and that is with part of the freeway being 80 MPH.  When we entered the park we were greeted by the bison herd and the prairie dogs. A little past the entrance, we saw two relaxing goats, but there was no place to stop to get their pictures. Badlands NP does have hiking, which is mostly backcountry, and lots of overlook locations to look at the rocks formations. Since we got to the park around 9:30 AM we had some morning light but not the perfect morning light,  that gives you the deep shadows and brings out the red in the rock formation. It took us about 3 hours to drive completely through the park with stops and a doing a few loop trail hikes. You could tell as the sun go higher the color seemed to disappear from the rocks.  The best time of day to get vibrant colors in the rocks and the deep shadows to show off the crevasse would be sunrise or sunset. So we are planning on going back for sunset sometime during the week.

After we drove through the park, we went to Wall Drug for lunch.  Plus all the signs say visit Wall Drug, thus we had to go. Wall drug is your standard kitschy tourist stop. It has two places to eat, a play area, and lots of shopping areas. After lunch we stopped in at the National Grasslands Visitor center and learned about all the national grasslands.  From there we went back to the hotel for a little bit before going to see the dinosaur park and grab dinner.

The Dinosaur Park was built in 1936 and  has five large concrete dinosaurs. It is definitely kitschy but a very popular place.  The park also has a nice view of Rapid City. From the park we went to dinner. After dinner we walked down a half block from the restaurant to see the art alley.  The art alley is permitted graffiti, basically you get a permit and you can put something in the alley. The alley would be a great place to do a photo shoot. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for the day.

Tomorrow we will be taking a ride on the steam train and going to see the Crazy Horse Monument.