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Today we headed to the Badlands.

But first we called into the world famous "Wall Drug".

It had to be done!

After reading so much about the place and seeing the numerous sign posts for it along the way.
We weren't disappointed.

Skim got to indulge in a bit of retail therapy for a change.
And I got to sit with a couple of long drinks, before taking some fun photos....


(Ted Hustead was a Nebraska native who moved to Wall and opened a tiny drug store in 1931. Five years later, it was still a tiny drug store. Dorothy, Ted's wife, thought that the travelers driving past their store must be thirsty, and suggested that Ted put up a sign outside of town advertising free ice water at Wall Drug. Ted thought it was a silly idea, but he was desperate and put up the sign. By the time he got back, thirsty tourists were already lining up for their free ice water. And they've been stopping there ever since.)

Badlands National Park

Another little gem of a place.
Well we say little, but it's 244,000 acres of the most incredible scenery.

Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park consists of sixty-four thousand acres of designated official wilderness. Sage Creek Wilderness is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes the sites of 1890's Ghost Dances.

Grasslands support more than just grasses. Within them are many kinds of wildflowers, desert plants, and occasional trees that provide food and habitat for a unique assembly of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Researchers counted 134 different vertebrate species associated with a community of prairie dogs and also discovered an "invisible prairie" consisting of countless microscopic soil organisms equal to the total weight of all the vegetation.

Over 11,000 years of human history pales to the eons old paleontological resources. "Badlands" contains the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. The evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig can be studied in the Badlands formations


( Conservation writer Freeman Tilden described the region as "peaks and valleys of delicately banded

Wall.

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Another one horse town.

colors - colors that shift in the sunshine... and a thousand tints that color charts do not show. In the early morning and evening, when shadows are cast upon the infinite peaks or on a bright moonlit night when the whole region seems a part of another world, the Badlands will be an experience not easily forgotten,)


And we agree, "an experience not easily forgotten"...

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