Badlands to Sioux Falls

From Hill City (Mount Rushmore) we kept on heading east through South Dakota on our way to Minneapolis. We made a detour through Badlands National Park. The Badlands extend over a significant portion of Southwestern South Dakota and, as the pictures show - the name says it all.

I don't know what rock comprises this area, but it is truly desolate. However, there is a certain beauty in its desolation

Amazingly, people did at one time try to farm in this area - without success as one can imagine.

It would take more than a day to travel through the entire park- obviously we did not have that much time and so we had to be satisfied with a fairly short loop between two little towns in South Dakota.

We had lunch in a town - forgot the name - but I do remember that the REAL General Lee (Dukes of hazzard!) and Elvis' Motorcycle can be seen there.

Our stop for the night was Sioux Falls - not much to report about that. But on the way we did pass through famous Wall, South Dakota and stopped at the even more famous (for being famous) Wall Drug Store which is modestly described as: America's Favorite Roadside Attraction!

Apparently the drugstore became famous back in the days of bad roads and lack of air conditioned cars by promising anyone who stopped a free glass of ice water. Who could resist!