Badlands National Park

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After leaving Minnesota we headed for the Badlands National Park. We drove for 13 hours including breaks and side trips.  Our first side trip was to Sioux Falls.  We stopped here because it was basically the midpoint of this travel day and needed a break to stretch our legs. In the last post we said it smelled of bacon. This is because of the Morrell  Meat Plant. The whole town down wind really smells of bacon or Slim Jims depending where you are. We didn't really walk around or explore the city because we needed to push on, however we did go to the actual falls and had lunch to tide us over. King didn't know what to make of the water and was hesitant to turn his back. The photographer had to whistle in order for him to pay attention.

The little time we did spend in Sioux Falls was nice and I recommend going there if you have the chance. There is a nice downtown area and plenty of things to keep you busy if you were staying awhile.

I can't remember what time we actually left Sioux Falls but the Sun was close to setting and we were behind schedule. We locked up the trailer and drove through town on our way back to the interstate. We stopped again at a rest stop about 20 miles outside of the Badlands to find a place to camp. It was 40 degrees out and we still had shorts and sandals on from the nice weather in Minnesota . Since it is getting to

Circle 10 Campground

the end of the season a decent amount of the campgrounds are closing up for the year. We found two that were just outside the park that had the things we were looking for (electric, water, sewer and still open). Jean started to notice a noise coming from the rear of the truck but at the time I couldn't hear it.  Despite the rear-end problem we had to push on because it was after midnight and there was nothing we could do about the truck at that hour. By the time we pulled off of the highway the truck was really screaming. The noise was noticeable now. Even to me. We wanted to camp at the first campsite we could find. Circle 10 was the first we saw and we kept driving. Scary place kinda like the Bates Motel. There was one RV in the lot and no car. No thank you.

The next closest one was through the park on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Now if you have never read or seen photo's of the Badlands you need to go there. I had some knowledge of this place before the trip, however I was surprised when I was actually confronted with it, and it was still night. By the time we climbed and descended our way through the park it was 1:30 am when we limped into the campsite. We were exhausted, so exhausted we didn't even hook up the trailer.