Even though today was a travel day, due to the proximity of the Visitor Center we decided to head out to it. After doing that and viewing the park’s movie, we saw and talked to two preparation paleontologists carefully separating rock from actual fossil samples.
From there, we drove to “Wall drugs” in nearby Wall, SD. Several people had said we”had to” go there. Turns out its just a glorified tourist trap with all the “wild west” related items you can imagine being offered up for sale. We didn’t buy anything, but it was still interesting to visit.
On our way back, we drove back into the park’s Badlands loop and stopped at the various waypoints, but by then it was overcast, and the light was flat, so we decided to do that loop again in the oposite direction the next morning. Big difference. We then extended our drive by taking an unpaved road within the park, giving us an opportunity to see a herd of elk.
From there we proceeded to vist the Minuteman Historical Site, which we’ll cover in a separate post, and finaly back into Badlands NP where we hiked a marked trail. Its easy to see how one could easily get lost once all you see around you is hilly terrain.
