Day 17 ~ More of South Dakota

Today was a no hotel breakfast day, so we went back to Wall Drug to eat.  It was much better than the dinner we had yesterday.  We walked around to the parts of the store we didn't see yet, like the backyard building, played an arcade shooting game, and posed for a few more photos.

  After letting breakfast settle, we went back to the parlor for the kids to get some ice cream.  They don't seem to like when I call "mom tax" for a taste!

We soon left for The Badlands National Park, which was really just a short drive south of Wall.  I was not expecting such ginormous landforms.  They aren't really mountains, but jagged rock layers above the land and deep ravines below the land.  The drive thru the park was extraordinary!  There were beautiful long distance views and the rock structures looked like mazes.  In other random areas of the park, we drove through grassy plains.  Then we'd be back in the rock formations again.  It was never-ending!

It the flatter areas with grasses, we saw hundreds of prairie dog mounds, and a bunch of the little critters.  We also spotted about five female pronghorn grazing.  Then a male came along and chased them all away!  In the dry rocky cavern areas, we saw one lone bison, and one deer.  The road was quite windy and sharp cliff drop offs at the side of the road.  Seeing all the people walking on the mounds, and sitting on the edges of the caverns were really making me nervous!!!!  They were moving like it was nothing, but one small slip and over the edge they would go.  The family was not amused by my anxiety over watching people test their balance!

The weather for the most part was fair.  We had a few raindrops as we drove along, but it wasn't too bad... just mostly cloudy for the day, and a little cool.

I went alone on one boardwalk path through the peaks and it was so pretty.  My cohorts were getting tired of my adventures, so they all sat in the car while I explored.  It was so amazing, and I was even able to walk on some of the rocky formations, I just stuck to the flatter, lower rocks that did not have sheer cliff sides.  

After our Badlands escapade, we headed to our next overnight stop: Baymont by Wyndham, which was located on the Missouri River in Oacoma, SD.  It was a really nice hotel with huge rooms!  It also had a large pool and hot tub.  The pool had a basketball and hoop, so the kids were loving that for like an hour!  Our dinner was top notch at Al's Oasis next door, and we got a few groceries in the attached market.  We had watermelon for dessert--those have become a favorite on our road trip!  By the end of today, we moved back into Central time, so we lost an hour of our day.