Badlands

Sunday we drove through South Dakota enroute for the Badlands. A vicious head wind made it feel like we drove forever and we were still in South Dakota. After about 6 or 7 hours of driving we started looking for a place to camp. For those of you who don’t know about South Dakota, it’s kind of a huge tourist trap. There is not much out there except open land, bill boards & kitschy type places like “1800 town”, a completely made up town that resembles the old west in the 1800’s, or “Corn Palace” which is a building that looks like a Russian castle with corn husks stapled to the outside of it, and of course, don’t forget Mt. Rushmore and Crazyhorse Monument which are truly works of great craftsmanship, but still have the mass appeal. We ended up stopping at a KOA about 40 miles east of the Badlands. This was the first KOA that we’ve stayed at so far and it appealed to us because it was relatively empty and there was another Westfalia camping there. We ended up camping right behind the other Vanagon and made friends with the single lady from New York who treated us to some local wine and gave me a VW Van shirt. The next day, July 4^th, we drove through Badlands National Park, which is like visiting another planet. Spring came so late this year that everything is really great and lush which made for a wonderful contrast of green grasses against white and red rocks and blue skies in the background. It was really beautiful. We debated going to Mount Rushmore, but ended up skipping it due to potential crowds for the holiday and headed towards Wyoming & Grand Tetons National Park instead.