Long hearing how incredible the Badlands are, I had looked forward to being here. Some people only zip through them on the interstate. However, I wanted to spend the extra few hours on the two-lane road through the park. I am so glad I did.

The park is much bigger east-west than north-south. It includes over a quarter million acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The Oglala Lakota tribe is involved with the care of the park. The park has an area where RV's and other campers can spend the night. A number of them bring their bicycles.

I arrived before sunset (and got some good photos of it later) so had to wait at the Cedar Pass Lodge a while. The RV/camper area was nearby. Once I got started, I saw that Highway 240 was more scenic and "up close" than Highway 44. I wanted to take Sage Creek Road from near the west end of Highway 240 before it got to Wall SD and I-90 but Sage was gravel and very bumpy (as if the tread of a bulldozer ran over it when it was very wet surface) so retreated to Wall (but did not go by the famous (infamous!) Wall Drug Store which advertizes itself about every 10 yards).

As for the Badlands themselves, I was not expecting such craggy looking rock formations. Pretty cool. And as you'll see in the pictures, some very oblivious deer (I think they are deer) graze with lots of nearby people taking their photos. And while walking up to photograph the formations I noted that the ground was cracking from being too dry.