We drove through more of South Dakota & into the Badlands, all of which is quite desolate. There were some cattle along the drive but no farmland or trees. What we did see is lots of tan colored sand, rocks, boulders & crevices. Not many towns either, the town of Interior, near our KOA consisted of a few houses & a Garage. The Badlands/White River KOA actually was like an oasis in the desert. All of a sudden, we saw trees, green grass and a muddy river as we drove into the campground. As with most KOA's, there is a small pool. There were many empty sites and lots of tiny black winged dead bugs in the bathroom.
Badlands National Park is 244,000 acres filled with various sedimentary rock that form buttes, pinnacles & spires. The park also contains acres of grasslands that surround these unique rock structures. These deep canyons, flat topped tables & sky high spires are the result of two geologic processes: deposition and erosion. The buttes were deposited in layers and as the erosion takes place the colors emerge. As the rocks erode, the multicolored layers are revealed: shale=purple & yellow, sand/gravel=tan & gray, iron oxides=red & orange, volcanic ash=white.
We started our visit by stopping at the Visitor Center, watching their informative movie and touring the Fossil lab. The shale layer is a rich source of fossils so many types of invertebrate fossils have been discovered in the park. An array of extinct animals, from enormous to very small, once roved this area.
There is a park loop which we could drive a portion of in the RV. We stopped along the way to hike 4 trails: Cedar Pass, Window, Door & Notch. All gave us great views with lots of spires and fun rock formations. The Door trail, leads through an opening of the Badlands Wall, which is an impressive large, high wall-like rock structure. The Notch trail, has a log ladder up a steep cliff that then awards one with a dramatic view of the White River Valley.
There also is wildlife here but thankfully we didn't see any. Doug is walking by a sign in the pic that warns of Rattlesnakes!
Everyone told us we had to visit Wall Drug, the "#1 Roadside Attraction in America" while we were in this area, so we drove to the town of Wall and we couldn't miss the drug store. It takes up a block, of the 3 block town. It is not our kind of place, 76,000 sq. feet filled with cheap souvenirs & gadgets, wonder who gave it #1 status? It probably is the "World's Largest Drug Store". It does have a shake shop & free water, so we split a milkshake which wasn't as good as our Huckleberry shake in Grand Teton NP.
The next morning, on our way east, we stopped at our last National site in S. Dakota: The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site established in 1999. In the early 1960's at the beginning of the Cold War, the US Army Corps of Engineers built South Dakota's 15 underground Minuteman missile launch control centers. The Minuteman l&ll missiles were developed as intercontinental ballistic missiles that could be deployed remotely from underground launch facilities. The nuclear missiles could travel over the North Pole and arrive at a target in less than 30 minutes. Two missile sites, a silo and an underground Launch Control Center, have been preserved here but are not active. This Historic site educates tourists about the nuclear arms race, the Minuteman's role during the Cold War and the dedication of Air Force personnel who staffed the sites. The Minuteman II system is believed to have acted as a nuclear deterrent that maintained peace and prevented war. We watched the depressing film at the Visitor Center but did not tour the missile sites, you need advanced registration to do that.
More great pics from our hikes:
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| We enjoyed our 2019 western summer tour! |
The next day continuing east, we drove from Minnesota to Illinois. Tonight, we stopped just over the border of Illinois in the Quad Cities, on the Mississippi River @ the Fisherman's Corp of Engineers Campground. Our site was on the shoreline of the river where there were lots of blooming yellow flowers on lily pads. We also had a view of Lock#24 & watched a barge lock through.
In the morning, we drove into Indiana & stopped at our last National Park of the summer: Indiana Dunes National Park. This is one of the newest NP's just obtaining NP status in February of this year. Before February, it was designated a National Lakeshore. It has 15 miles of beach along Lake Michigan's southern shoreline & the park covers 15,000 acres. The dunes are in constant movement & the shoreline ever changing. All off this area was formed by glaciers & the Dunes formed from the winds & storms. Mount Baldy its the park's highest dune @ 126 feet tall. We did some hiking around & up Mt Baldy but we did not go down the dune to the lake because it was raining & we were sinking into the sand to ankle deep & that would have been a lot of work to get back up & I was making Doug take it easier since his little A-Fib episode. We stopped @ the Visitor Center & got our last stamp in our National Park Book, 7 National Parks this year, making a total of 45 National Park visits in our lifetime. There is conflicting information regarding total number of NP's but Wikipedia says Indiana Dunes NP is the nation's 61st National Park.
Indiana Dunes State Park lies within the NP. I came here as a teenager when I visited my Aunt Carmela, Uncle Jerry & my 3 cousins who then, lived in Michigan City; this visit brought back good memories. Doug & I walked along the beach, looking for Petoskey stones & not finding any. We camped right in the park in the Driftwood Maher Loop. The campground is very nice, lots of trees & space between sites, paved streets & aprons. We did not have electric @ our site but there were showers in the restrooms.
