This has been our longest day of driving so far. We plan to have one more 12 hour drive, but not until we get to Texas. We left Chicago around 7:30AM and headed west towards Badlands National Park in South Dakota. We had no camping plans, because the Cedar Pass campsite is first come first serve, unlike our others where we could make reservations in advance..so where we would stay for the night was still a variable.
Driving on I-90 was very scenic, as the highway is pretty much surrounded by miles and miles and more miles of farmlands. Joey started the first leg of the drive, we switched after lunch, and switched back again when we got to the Mitchell Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.
Yes, this building is made out of corn..and only corn. It was a neat roadside attraction that wasn’t too far off the highway. When we got back on the highway, we began to see signs for Wall Drug, in Wall, South Dakota. Apparently this is a must go roadside attraction, and the antique road signs caught our attention.
Although we were nearing Wall Drug, we don’t plan to go until tomorrow morning. Our goal was to reach Badlands National Park before sunset, because the sunsets here are suppose to be BEAUTIFUL. Hours became minutes, and next thing we know we begin to see exit signs for Badlands National Park..we finally made it 12 hours later! When we got to the park, we headed straight for Notch Trail to do a little hiking after our drive (Door and Window trails are nice, but we wanted to be adventurous).
The hike seemed very easy until we reached the log ladder (of death) that was necessary in order to scale the ridge. I never knew I was afraid of heights until now…or until I was walking atop a mountain with loose rocks that could make me fall with one wrong step. When we were up there, the trail became narrower and that’s when I had to call quits, but Joey continued on the trail to take more pictures.
He soon came back around and said it even got narrower for him, and almost lost the camera hood, so he knew it was time to turn back. Going down this ladder was much harder than going up, but Joey talked me through it until I reached the ground (what a great boyfriend!). We headed over to the Cedar Pass campsite, and of course it was full, so we had to go to a more primitive campsite, Sage Creek campground. This was more of an open land where anyone can just park and camp. We drove through the Badlands during sunset, and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets we have ever seen (hard to believe since I grew up in Key West).
We didn’t even mind how far the campsite was because we were too busy admiring the sunset and views of the Badlands. We drove up ridges and down valleys and saw panoramic views of the Badlands. We arrived at the campground just before dark, and we quickly set camp (we’re the orange tent) and got ready for bed since we were exhausted from today.
