Badlands National Park, Wall Drug and Spearfish, SD

We arrived safely in Wall, SD early Saturday afternoon.  We set up camp at the Sleepy Hollow Campground.

 $29 with Good Sam, not fancy but had a great little dog park.

After hooking up we quickly headed for Badlands National Park.   The Pinnacles Entrance to the  park is about 7 miles outside of Wall.  We arrived at that entrance about 2pm.  The recommended route for viewing the park is to travel the Badlands Loop Road so we did for the next 3 hours. We first took the Sage Creek Rim Road off of the main loop, driving around 5 miles down the road.  It's mighty shallow to just say that the scenery is beautiful.  It's so much more.  It's endlessly unique.  The pictures will have to speak for themselves!

But in addition to the marvelous rock formations, we encountered great wildlife. (Sorry, more pictures coming!)  First there were the Bison.

They came right out to the road to visit with us.

It was a little intimidating.  They were VERY close and  Debbie kept "reminding" me they could charge at any time.

But we survived.  It was great fun. 

Then we came to the cutest of cute. Prairie Dogs.

Primarily they were guarding their homes but  they were such performers.  Again, a picture or two or three or more speaks a thousand words!

We later saw deer, and a great little rabbit. 

The whole Badlands experience was outstanding!

We then returned to Wall to visit the world famous Wall Drug.

It could be described as the largest trinket store known to man.  But it really includes so much more!  The "store" occupies multiple buildings that showcase western art, historic memorabilia, a Cafe, freshly made donuts, free water an animated dinosaur, jumping fountains for the kids to play in, a recreated saloon, old-timey photo salon and on and on.

Fortunately, Debbie and I are not shoppers so we didn't feel a  great need to spend a lot of time at the store.  This is not to say that some folks  might want to spend a day there,  just not us.

Sunday we drove about 125 miles to Spearfish, SD for our next volunteer position at the DC Booth Historic Fish Hatchery.  This will likely be our home until mid-September.  I'm already in love with the place.  We're camped in an area set aside solely for the DC Booth volunteers at the Spearfish City Campground.

It's a very nice campground, nicely lighted with ample space between sites  Our site backs up to what is suppose to be a nice little stream.  Because of the excessive rainfall in the area, it currently is a raging river.

We will watch it closely from our back window.

Hopefully we won't have to flee!

We're within walking distance of town and easy driving distance to any service or store we'd want.  Our friendly stream is only about 20 feet from the back of our camper.  Between us and the stream is paved walking/biking path that goes on for miles. I've already spent an hour and a half or more walking the paved trail.  We will spend endless hours on this trail that winds along the river and through the delightful town of Spearfish.  We also look forward to our volunteer duties and enjoying the many attractions in western SD.  So we're excited!!!

Duane