Badlands Day 1

Note: I cannot download pictures from my camera because there are too many images on the memory card. I guess at this point I will have to wait until I get home to download the rest of the pictures taken on the trip since yesterday, because I don’t have a card reader that I can use to transfer the images. Bummer!

This morning when I got up it was overcast, cool and misting outside. I dressed, had breakfast and headed out around 8:30 am. I drove over to the National Grasslands Visitor Center here in Wall, SD to see what might be able to be seen at the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands which surround much of The Badlands National Park. After that I headed down I-90 a little over 20 miles to enter the park on the Northeast Entrance since the Visitor Center was on that end of the park. My plan was to work my way back to Wall on the Badlands Loop drive in the park. On the way I stopped at the Historic Prairie Home just outside the park. I then headed on down the road to the park entrance. By this time the rain and misting had stopped and the sun was trying to make an appearance occasionally.

Once inside the park I made my way to the Visitor Center, 5 miles away on the park Badlands Loop Drive, stopping at several overlooks along the way. I arrived at the Visitor Center around 10:45 am. At the Visitor Center I got my last stamp for my passport for this road trip adventure. I then talked with a Park Ranger about conditions in the park. All of the trails were wet and muddy from the rains the past two days, so hiking was not in the cards for today. The trails usually dry out pretty quickly and tomorrow the forecast is for sun, temp near 70 with gusty winds, so the trails might dry out for some hiking.

I went back to car and continued on the loop drive that would take me back to Wall about 30 miles away. Along the way I stopped at the various overlooks and trail heads, checking the trail conditions (still muddy). At the Big Foot Pass overlook I stopped and had my lunch/snack consisting of t a couple of trail mix energy bars and some water. I continued on after that along the loop drive, stopping at the overlooks. The weather varied from overcast to partly sunny most of the day, but by about 1:30 pm the sun was winning the battle with the clouds and temp was approaching 60F.

I arrived back in Wall around 2:45 pm and decided to visit the Wounded Knee museum. I returned to the hotel around 3:30 pm. Shortly after I arrived at the hotel, the skies which had been sunny began to darken again. I checked the weather and line of showers was moving up from the southwest.

A little after 4 pm I drove downtown (4 blocks away) to the Badlands Bar and ordered pizza for dinner. It was pretty good. While eating, the rain finally made its reappearance around 4:30 pm. After dinner I walked around the downtown area (one block long) browsing in the various shops, including Wall Drug, which takes up about half of one side of the street.

I returned to my hotel room a little after 5 pm and started downloading my pictures, or least that’s what I had hoped to do until I kept getting a communication error. Finally, after re-installing the camera software, I checked the camera user guide and discovered the problem is having too many images on the memory card to download to my computer, So, I guess this means I won’t be able to post any more pictures on my blog until I get home. I will work on it some tonight as I can delete some pictures from the memory card to possibly get to a point where I can download them to my computer.

Hopefully tomorrow will turn out as forecast and I can possibly hike some of the trails. If that doesn’t pan out I may drive down to the Wounded Knee Massacre site.

See you down the road!