The South Dakota Badlands are about 50 miles from Rapid City, South Dakota. The significant town is Wall. In the 1930s, Wall Drug Store was just a small shop on the main drag. They started giving away free ice water as vehicles came across the South Dakota prairie. It was hot, dry, and generally miserable in the cars of the day — no air conditioning. Free ice water and five-cent coffee was a great way to get people to stop in, fill up with fuel, and maybe get a little something at their business. Wall Drugs attracted attention by putting up billboards as far away as 350 miles in both directions along I-90. (Buc-ee’s took a page out of the Wall Drug and South of the Border books). 

Over the years, Wall Drugs has had billboards galore. Coffee is still just five cents there. Other items are more appropriately priced. But for a tourist location, it’s not a gouge. However, it has turned into a tourist mecca. Some people say it can be skipped, and others say you have to see it. It falls into the attraction category of places like Carhenge, South of the Border, and Cadillac Ranch, as far as I’m concerned. You definitely want to tick it off your bucket list.

Wall has embraced the tourism notoriety so gift shops, restaurants and other touristy things to see and do are popping up around the Town of Wall. One great example is this giant jackalope at a gift shop near the entrance to town.

I was not staying in Wall because I had not made reservations soon enough, since I hadn’t known exactly where I was going. So, I stayed in Interior. A friend of mine called Interior the 7th Circle of Hell in the summer. It was pretty warm most of the time. In fact, the high while I was there reached 111 degrees, and it was on an unpaved road. 

I was staying just outside of the Badlands National Park in a location called Badlands Hotel and Campground. It was okay, but campers were packed in there like sardines, without much room. However, the facilities were not horrible, and it was relatively convenient. It was nine miles to the interstate, 20 miles to Wall, and right at the base of the National Park. I took a few trips around the Badlands Loop, as they called it, looking for odd sun angles, sunsets, and buffalo. Why I needed to see more buffalo after all I had already seen, I don’t know, but it seemed to be the thing to do.

A friend of mine, who was a co-worker in Nebraska and now lives in Pierre, came over and joined me for a day. We drove out and found the buffalo. We also found some really long longhorns. Luckily, they were grazing near the highway, so it was easy to snap a few shots of them as well.

Because I had waited so long to make reservations, I was in this area for several days because I couldn’t get reservations north over the 4th of July. I was exceptionally impressed by the quality of the Interior fireworks show. Interior has a full-time population of under 100, but they put on a mighty good fireworks show for the size of their community. In fact, I would say it was highly above average. Even as much of a tourist area as they are, they don’t have a lot of businesses and structure to work with, and they still managed to pull it off.

I had been to the Badlands a couple times while living in Nebraska, but I enjoyed the opportunity just to be there — not to drive through quickly, see what I could see, and get out, but to really explore all the nuances of the park. I don’t think I left too many roads unexplored and drove some more than a few times.

With that, I was heading to a state I had only been in once, and that was North Dakota. Next stop was Teddy Roosevelt National Park, which is in the Badlands of North Dakota. Didn’t know there was a Badlands in North Dakota? Neither did I until recently, so stay tuned!