Not long after you head west out of Chicago, the States become an endless expanse of prairies and farmland. Our 900-mile drive across to Badlands National Park in South Dakota gave us glorious sunsets, raging storms, and crosswinds that felt like a giant was punching the car from the side. We also got to hear some genuine Minnesotan accents, which, having watched Fargo, was a joy.
Blue skies and the beautiful Dignity statue greeted us as we approached Badlands. That, and hundreds of billboards for “Wall Drug”… much like “The Thing” back in Arizona, American advertising was in full force along this highway, intriguing us to the point where a stop in the tiny town of Wall Drug was inevitable. But first, Badlands National Park.
Not knowing much about the park beforehand, Aleks and I were both astonished by the sight stretching out in front of us: vast, rocky canyons smattered with green patches of grass, ready to be explored.
This is surely one of our favourite parks in the US, with the cherry on the cake being our ridiculously gorgeous camping spot for the night, perched atop a cliff at the edge of the park.
It was time for us to visit Wall Drug to satisfy our curiosity. Turns out to be a small town where the main attraction is a funky shopping complex; it’s a bit of a maze of kitsch souvenir shops, a restaurant and even a chapel. Maybe (definitely) a bit of a tourist trap but entertaining nonetheless!
Mount Rushmore, nestled in the Black Hills, was our final stop in South Dakota. Impressive as it is, if you’ve seen it once, you don’t need to go again. It was interesting learning about how they went about carving the enormous cliff face – they made a mini sculpture and scaled it up by a factor of 12 on the mountain itself. Worth stopping by if you happen to be in that part of the world!
The Big Adventure 
So glad to see and read all this. When you left us in Chicago I remember telling you how strange and mysterious and beautiful the Badlands are. I think it is as much of a must see as any of the cities and you seem to agree. Beautiful photos. And your commentary is so entertaining and well written.
Mt. Rushmore could be skipped I think.
I am a little confused as to where you are now but I am still admiring both of you and your wonderful blog. I wish you would pass through Chicago again.
Continue on. Life is an adventure whether on the road or back in England.
Cheers
ROSE
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We’re in Australia now, making our way down the east coast from Cairns in the north to Sydney in the south. It is incredibly hot and doesn’t feel like Christmas is just around the corner at all.
The photos and the blog posts are very out of sync as it’s so much quicker to post a photo of where we are than write a journal entry. So best to rely on the photos to figure out where we are.
I really hope we’ll visit Chicago again and if we do we’ll be in touch for sure.
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