John-n-Sylvia's 2011 RV Trip: Badlands National Park, South Dakota

July 10, 2011 – Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Badlands National Park was not on our original schedule, but after talking to other RVers we decided to spend a day and visit the park. Good decision. Badlands N.P. is spectacular, and there are several other sites to see on the same trip.

If you have ever travelled I-95 North from Florida to North Carolina, you know what ‘South of the Border’ is. It is a motel and entertainment area right at the NC/SC border, but what distinguishes it is the hundreds of billboards and signs they have posted for 100 miles or so both north and south of their location.

I-90 in South Dakota has a similar location, but in this case it is a drug store and large entertainment area with signs for miles in all directions from the location. Wall Drug opened in the city of Wall, SD during the depression and the new business floundered for a few months. They had a real hard time getting customers because the store was not on the main road (now I-90) between Badlands and Rapid City, although they could hear all the cars going by. In order to attract customers the owners wife suggested that they put up signs on the I-90 predecessor road advertising ‘Free Ice Water’.. Imagine driving in your Model T with your family crammed in, across the hot desert area and the Badlands, then seeing a sign for ‘Free Ice Water’. The rest is history. They put up more signs, then also began selling coffee for 5 cents a cup. They still give you free ice water and the coffee is still 5 cents a cup. It has turned into quite a successful attraction, known all over the area.

They have a wax display of Wild Bill Hickok and Doc Holiday playing cards against an apparent cheater. Nobody takes that lightly, so Wild Bill whips out his pistol to resolve the situation.

They even had a wall of ‘jackalopes’, jackrabbits with antelope antlers. Some taxidermist out there has way too much time on his hands.

Another RVer told us we should get off at exit 116 on I-90, because there was an old Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) site there. Sounded good to us.

There are no signs indicating that the site is there, and you need to go ½ mile down a dirt road to a non-descript chain-link fenced area, with ‘Restricted Area’ signs all around, and a little sign beside the open gate advertising tours of the site. Since the gate was open, we just went in.

Looking down into the circular glass topped dome, there is an ICBM in there looking back at you. (unarmed, I assume).

In the late 60s there were over 1000 of these missiles installed in the Midwest and the upper Great Plains states, including 150 in South Dakota. When these missiles were armed, they were designed to travel over the North Pole and arrive at their target in about 30 minutes after launch, with a 1.2 Megaton Warhead, the equivalent of over a million tons of dynamite. Two of these missiles contained more explosive power than all of the bombs used in WWII, including the atomic weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki… That got my attention

On the road into Badlands NP there is a Prairie Dog Habitat area. Since we had no luck getting close to the little critters at Prairie Dog State Park in Kansas, we gave it a try here with much better luck.

These Prairie Dogs are much more acclimated to people. There is a store on site that sells peanuts for you to feed them, so they are trainable…. These guys were so full of peanuts they sort of ignored any new peanuts thrown their way... Burp..!!

On to the Badlands National Park

Pictures can’t do this park justice because it is so expansive with subtle color changes everywhere. Every direction you turn there is something spectacular to see.