Arriving in Badlands National Park

Our visit to Mount Rushmore was just a couple of hours long, but the unplanned detour had us arriving at our the final real destination of our trip a little later than planned: Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

(Yes we also stopped at Wall Drug. My neighbor is from South Dakota, and informed us that this stop was required and that we would be quizzed.) We weren't sure what to expect here, as the surrounding area is mainly grassland -- as seen above.

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The crazy thing is though, as the camera pans to the left the land falls away...

...and you start to see what all the fuss is about!

So colorful, so desolate, so vast!

We stopped at the first two pullouts we came to. There were a few other people here, but it was no problem getting human-free panoramic shots. The first one is the stitched-together version of the first few photos of this post:

Next, the second vista, two versions:

Or maybe we actually stopped at three different pullouts? I can't tell. Does it really matter though?

The light was fading as we pulled into the campsite, which was starkly different than some of the previous sites we enjoyed on this trip. It was little more than a parking lot -- but that's to be expected when the landscape contains virtually no trees, right?

(click these to enlarge or you'll never see any detail!)

I have to admit though, the view out of the door side of the RV was probably one of my favorites of the entire trip:

Once the other campers settled in for the evening and things quieted down, this was quite nice -- we heard several coyotes howling out there somewhere (not far!) soon after I took these photos. We would be here for two nights -- plenty of time to enjoy this prairie that was literally outside our door.

What a day! Started that morning at Devils Tower, visited Mount Rushmore, now in Badlands National Park. More to come...

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