The Final Countdown: Badass Badlands B*tches hit the Road

It probably shouldn't be surprising that someone who is obsessively counting countries would also have an eye towards counting states. I've long wanted to hit all 50 but had been stuck at 46 for way too long. Last year, during the most amazing visit to Yellowstone National Park, I managed to cross off half the list- Montana and Wyoming- which just left North and South Dakota. Achieving this goal seems easy enough, they are side by side after all but the obstacles kept piling up. In order to properly see both states, you have to rent a car. Public transit is pretty much non-existent. I do not like driving in the best of circumstances and their brutal winters means those "best" circumstances only exist for a couple of months out of the year. They don't have hostels, making this a pricier endeavor than I'm used to. All of these reasons and more were enough for me to continue postponing the final two.

I was discussing this dilemma with my bestie, Ivon, a person who has never met a problem she can't solve. Immediately, she suggested we get a group together and road trip this thing. Sharing the driving and the accommodations would make it much less daunting. It was a short leap from this conversation to the group chat. Even as I threw out itineraries and everyone enthusiastically responded with thumbs up emojis, I was skeptical that this was actually going to happen. For starters, there was the time issue. In order to properly do everything we wanted to do, we needed a minimum of one week and 3 of the 4 of us are gainfully employed. Then there was making it interesting to four people with different travel styles and interests. As the de facto tour planner, I would have to push myself out of my typical comfort zone.  Miraculously enough, the trip managed to make it out of the group chat.

On Sept 20th, four of us flew from Miami to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The first order of business was picking up our Jeep Compass at the airport. While filling out the paperwork, we asked the rental guy what he recommended we see. "Nothing. There is nothing to see here." What about North Dakota? "Nope, nothing there either". I'm going to just jump ahead and say that this guy was dead wrong but what a stupid thing to say to a group of people visiting your state for the first time. 

If anything, there is too much to see for a one-week roadtrip. There is also too much to list in a blog post so I'm going to try to just hit the daily highlights. 

Day 1: Due to the afternoon arrival, we only really had a half day which we used to drive halfway to Badlands National Park. Along the way, we stopped in Mitchell, SD at the World's Only Corn Palace. If you haven't heard of it, you are not spending nearly enough time researching bizarro attractions because this is a biggie. It it a convention center/ performance space with murals made out of ears of corn. 

Yes, actual ears of corn. As one can imagine, this is not the most lost-lasting medium, particularly when birds are constantly trying to eat the art, thus the murals and their themes are changed annually. At this moment in time, they were showcasing the wonders of the world.

Note: the Statue of Liberty while lovingly rendered, is not a designated World Wonder

The Colosseum is a Wonder and also apparently quite tasty 

Our designated stop for the night, Chamberlain, SD was chosen for its central location, its stunning Dignity of Earth and Sky sculpture and the fact that we were pretty certain, they had the only Cuban restaurant in all of the Dakotas.

The Dakota Cuban: Recommended by 4 out of 4 Cubans

Day 2: Badlands bound. Along the way, we stopped at the Ranch Store for the same reason people have been stopping since the early 50's. We wanted to feed some prairie dogs. 

Although the store was closed, there was a garbage can full of little bags of peanuts and an honor system-based payment box. I believe most people are good so I'm not surprised that they'd be honest enough to pay for the nuts. What confounds me is that in all of this time, the prairie dogs have not figured out a way to open that garbage can. 

Clearly, they know what's up, putting on their cutest face for the humans. 

The only reason we didn't spend the entire day purchasing and distributing nuts was because we had a national park to get to.

Badlands National Park alone merits a couple of days with its nearly 243,000 acres of grasslands and geologic formations. 

Highlights include the Door and Window Trails, which are on the way to the Visitor's Center.

These signs can be seen at every single boardwalk yet we saw 0 rattlesnakes.

The scenic loop road is another must-do. It has plenty of pull-offs where you can stop and take pictures. The group quickly learned that if the question was  "Should we stop here?" my answer was always going to be "yes".

Long before you get to the park, you start to see signs advertising Wall Drugs. We tried to count them but fell way short before finding all 300+ billboards. The power of suggestion is a thing so once we left the park, we went straight to Wall, the nearest town and home to the eponymous drug store. 

It began in the 30's as a small drug store promising travelers free ice water. It has since grown into a western-themed emporium with restaurants, stores, art galleries and even a wedding chapel. The only thing that hasn't changed is the free ice water. 

In planning this trip, the only guidance I was given was "no shithole hotels". Seeing as that is my preferred genre, this is where some boundary pushing would need to happen. My aim was to find places that were both well-tended to and interesting. I can do standard hotels, I just really didn't want to do boring. In Chamberlain, I had no choice but to pick the best of the chain hotels but Wall had way more options, which is how we ended up staying at our very own wood cabin? 

We didn't get too much time to linger in the cabin because another one of the park's highlights awaited us. Being in the middle of nowhere has its rewards, particularly at night. The park offers a stargazing program with knowledgeable (and very entertaining) rangers giving talks and providing telescopes. My iphone was no match for those telescopes or even the simplest of cameras so I don't have any photos properly capturing what we saw but suffice it to say that it was a highlight of the trip.

Day 3: This was a busy one. We started the day at Mount Rushmore, the world famous busts of four US presidents carved into a mountain itself.

There is a viewing platform beset by flags of all the US states and territories but its best to follow a trail that leads you closer to the gigantic faces. 

You can also watch a surprisingly honest film at the visitor's center that goes into detail about the mountain being sacred to the native people and their opposition to this project.

 

By the time we left Mt Rushmore, we were already running late. It is to be expected that traveling with a group is bound to be slower than traveling solo. What none of us had counted on was that one member of the party would have the bladder of a drunken infant on diuretics and all the urgency of a meth-addled sloth. Between all the bathroom stops and the insistence on sit-down meals, schedules were constantly having to be reworked. 

We eventually did make it to Custer State Park, one of the most highly rated state parks in the country. Not only is the park itself stunning, it is also home to plenty of wildlife.

Pronghorns at play

With a herd of over 1,500 bisons, this park practically guarantees a sighting.

Humans can be kind of clueless, as evidenced by the multitude of signs warning people not to pet the fluffy cows. Bison may look super mellow but they will gore the shit out of you if threatened. At the other end of the spectrum are the park's begging burros. While generally harmless, these wild donkeys have no chill whatsoever. 

It's not their fault. Generations of visitors to the park have imprinted on them that visitors= snacks. This is why these furry panhandlers will boldly go right up to any approaching vehicle to claim their due. 

The park tries to discourage the feeding of wild animals but people still show up with huge bags of carrots. We were not similarly prepared and could only offer them oranges snagged from a breakfast buffet. 

They did grudgingly eat the oranges but they weren't happy about it. One budding food critic turned around took a dump directly on our car, as if to say "next time, bring carrots, dummies".

We had hoped to drive the park's Needle Highway on the way to the Crazy Horse memorial but all the earlier delays combined with an impending storm had us cutting the day short. 

We instead went to Rapid City, where we stayed at the Hotel Alex Johnson. Built in 1927, it has been the go to spot for celebrities, sitting presidents and one ghost that remained elusive during our visit. 

The hotel was in the heart of a downtown area that was way cooler than it needed to be with a firehouse turned brewery, statues of US presidents and plenty of street art. 

So guys, where should we put Nixon? How about right in front the combination courthouse/ detention center, that seems like a good spot.

Day 4: The original plan was to go straight to Deadwood but online posts and videos of the Needles Highway convinced us to double back to Custer State Park. The only question was who was going to drive this windy, tipsy-turvy, tiny-tunneled road. Enter my good friend, Martha to the rescue. In a nutshell, she is one of the funniest people I know and has raised two of the best humans on this earth. Also, she doesn't mind driving, which came in handy cause this road was as insane as it was beautiful.

The most famous part is the Needles Eye Tunnel, which is only approximately 9 feet wide. We went through that thing twice!!

The male voice you hear in the video is a GPS-enabled audioguide tour I had downloaded. It's my first time using one but I did find that it added to our understanding of the area and its history. 

The tour alerted us to scenic stops, such as Sylvan Lake, a popular picnic spot.

It also mentioned two caves worth exploring in the area: Wind Cave and Jewel Cave. Both can only be entered on a guided tour and are sold out months in advance. We decided to try our luck with walk-up tickets at Jewel Cave, the larger of the two. At the moment, it is the second longest cave in the US but since excavation continues, it may someday overtake Kentucky's Mammoth Cave for the longest. 

Our gamble paid off and we were able to join the 30 minute Discovery Tour, which gave us a nice introduction to the unique formations found inside cave. 

Popcorn spar

Dogtooth spar

Nailhead spar

It also gave me a chance to talk to a very helpful ranger- as if there's any other kind- at the Cave's visitor center who suggested we detour on our way to Deadwood via the Spearfish Canyon scenic highway. She even explained in great detail how we should do that. I tried as best I could to follow along but directions are not my strong suit so in the end, we had to rely on Google Maps.

There's no other way to put it. Google Maps fucked us. First, it sent us into Wyoming.

Then back in S Dakota, it sent us down a dirt road, where Martha asked the age-old question "Why is there so much shit?"

Cows. The answer was cows. There were hundreds of free roaming cows claiming the road as their own.

Then for a grand finale, it sent us to a campground with no wifi signal and no idea how to get to an actual road. Lucky for us, a caretaker drove by and I chased him until he could point us in the right direction. 

With his help, we were soon on the proper path, chasing waterfalls.

It was as gorgeous as promised, if not more so. From there, it was a short drive- on paved roads- to Deadwood, where we checked into the Hard Rocksino hotel. The town is best described as Western Disney with actors enacting shootouts in the streets. It's touristy as hell but totally works on a kitschy fun level.

That's not to say there is no actual Western history to Deadwood. The story of a bar fight that led to the death of Wild Bill Hickok is retold nightly at Saloon No. 10.

The production was actually better than any of us expected but there was one element that pushed it way over the top. Ivon, the always game badass that initiated the idea of this roadtrip, ended up cast in the role of the casino owner. 

If the Academy Awards accepted phone video submissions, I'm convinced her "Get out here, Jack!!" would get her the golden statue. 

I can not recall the last time I laughed as much as I did that night. 

The next morning, we would cross into my last state but on this night it was just about enjoying time with these amazing ladies and celebrating a successful visit through #49.