Badlands and Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota

We reached the Badlands National Park on Friday after driving west through Minnesota and most of South Dakota. The highway was an almost perfectly straight line through hundreds of miles of relentlessly flat and unchanging prairie land.  It was a relief when we reached the Badlands to see something other than fields of grasses or fields of crops.

From a distance, the Badlands appear like sharp peaks rising out of the prairie floor, but when you're driving through the park, it feels more like a canyon carved in to the land.

A two lane road weaves through the park, with pull-offs every few minutes.  Some people opted to stay in their cars and cram together in the windows to peer at the scenery through binoculars.  A lot of people had binoculars, which I didn't really understand since the Badlands seemed like more of a macroscopic than a microscopic attraction.

Since we'd made good time and reached the Badlands earlier in the day, we elected to continue on to Mount Rushmore, which is only a couple hours drive farther west.

While there are numerous campgrounds in the Black Hills National Forest in which Mt. Rushmore is located, we camped for free in the Wrinkle Rock camping area.  Lester did not mention that there were campgrounds with water, showers, and flush toilets in the area, only that where we would be staying did not have any.  Despite what it lacked in amenities, the campsite did have great views and easy access to rocking climbing.

During the night, a huge thunderstorm rolled through overhead; there was an unbelievable amount of lighting flashes and the accompanying thunder echoed off of the hills for long, loud seconds.  The weather cleared up by morning and we were able to visit Mt. Rushmore before the crowds arrived.

In the afternoon, we went rock climbing nearby (technically, Lester is rappelling in the picture below). 

We camped out the following night in Gillette, Wyoming, where, not to be outdone by South Dakota's huge thunderstorm, we had a brief hailstorm after dinner.

Our next stop is Yellowstone National Park.