We rose to sunny clear skies and calm winds, quite a contrast to last night's thunderstorm. We went back to the campground and were happy to find our tent intact, albeit having collected many cupfuls of rain water that we needed to pour out. Then we set out Badlands Loops, the 30 mile scenic drive through Badlands national park. The views were stunning and surprising. The ground was sticky from last night's rain. We exited the park and drove toward the town of Wall, SD, where the "famous" Wall Drug store was. It was a tourist trap with an assortment of [View Full Entry]

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We left Minneapolis/St. Paul around 10 am and got to Badlands around 5:45 pm. South Dakota was very green, mostly flat with small rolling hills. But the scenery was mostly monotonous until we got to Badlands. It was incredible to drive up to this "Wall" of rock formation that seemed to rise up from nowhere. Right before we arrived, we heard severe thunderstorm warning on the radio and we saw dark clouds rolling in. The lightnings started as we pulled up to our camp site at the Cedar Pass campground. The rain was full-on by the time we finished setting up [View Full Entry]

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