The Not-At-All-Badlands: A Trek into the Wide Open

Why are they even called the Badlands in the first place?

The next morning in South Dakota, we woke up to the delicious smell of Darcy’s cooking wafting up to our room on the second floor.

Thankfully, Darcy sells a cookbook of her recipes, which Kate purchased, so hopefully we can one day be a quarter of the cook that she is!

The morning’s creation was a French toast bake, which included layers of sweet, cinnamon French toast baked with fresh raspberries and blueberries, and covered in a sugary streusel.

It was one of the most mouthwatering breakfasts I’ve ever had. We also enjoyed sausage from a local in Hermosa, as well as a banana yogurt parfait.

John and Darcy joined us again, and we had a wonderful morning full of coffee and laughter. They are truly a delight! We told them all about our adventures from the day before, and talked about our plans for the day. They again offered us a few suggestions that we gladly took.

Once it was time for us to take off, John and Darcy hugged us goodbye and told us to come back anytime. As we drove down the gravel road that looped around the B&B, we saw them standing on their back porch, waving goodbye. They were pretty much the cutest.

Upon Darcy’s recommendation, we headed to Prairie’s Edge in Rapid City, which was a really cool shop that featured a lot of Native American artists. Near the back of the shop on the first floor, there were rows and rows of beads that reminded me of my grandma, a jewelry artist.

When I was a child, one of my favorite parts about visiting my grandma was making jewelry with her. During every trip, we got to make at least one piece together. I remember begging to go out to her shop and begin creating something, and impatiently waiting while my family chatted in her kitchen. When it was finally time, we’d step in to her shop, which always smelled like leather and sweetgrass, and I would get to choose from a variety of beautiful beads in an array of colors. She’d help me string beads along wire, and teach me new techniques or designs.

Many of the beads on the shelves looked exactly like some of the beads we used, and as I found out later, they could have been, as Prairie’s Edge was a store my grandma visited many times during her days traveling across the country with her jewelry. The smell of sweetgrass was strong at the back of the store, and I had to buy a braid of it. The smell of sweetgrass always reminds me of my grandma, and nearly everything on this trip was reminding me of her.

In a way, she inspired this particular trip. When my grandma would travel across the country selling her jewelry, she would send me postcards (which I still have) from all of the fun destinations she’d go to, and I remember getting a postcard from the Badlands on more than one occasion. I knew I’d see it one day.

We headed to the second floor, where there was an even more beautiful display of beads, in every color you could imagine.

It was a little heavenly. We perused the art on the second floor, and then made our way to Darcy’s second suggestion.

We’d wanted to visit a museum in Rapid City that had a T-Rex fossil, but unfortunately, it was closed on Sunday. Darcy half-jokingly suggested that we could go to Dino Park in Rapid City if we wanted to see dinosaurs.

Dino Park consisted of a few cement statues, covered in green paint that had worn down in areas where people consistently climbed.

After we’d had our fill of dinosaurs, we had one last stop before we left Rapid City: caramel rolls from the Colonial House.

They claim to be the best caramel rolls – I’ll admit, they were good, but not the best caramel rolls. I wouldn’t make this a deal breaker pit stop if you ever find yourself in Rapid City.

At exactly noon, we hit the road. Our next stop was to finally go to Wall Drug, after about 10 million billboards begging us to come in for a free glass of ice water.

Wall Drug in one word: overwhelming.

There was stuff everywhere. There were shops lined on both sides of the main hall, with smaller side hallways haphazardly leading to other smaller rooms throughout the building. Signs covered the walls, and some of the shop entrances were made to look like exterior storefronts. The shops at Wall Drug were mostly stocked with trinkets, though there were a few places that had some nicer items and pieces of jewelry.

After walking through the whole building, we hit the road again. The Badlands were calling our name.

And they were stunning.

Everything felt so wonderfully open. The lookout points throughout the park were incredible – you could get close enough to see every detail of the wrinkles and ridges that had made their way into the rock formations. As we drove throughout the park, the smell of the sweetgrass braid filled the car, making me feel both light and grounded.

We got to the park at the perfect time, too. The sun was pouring orange and gold into the blue and purple of the sky, as it took its time lowering itself into a sunset.

There were a few wooden paths across the Badlands that you could walk through, which were really nice and well-cared for. I enjoyed how interactive the park was – there were a lot of opportunities to explore, and walk further in between the rock formations than I thought any park ranger would allow.

Periodically, there would be a post with an informative sign. The signs were pretty awesome – whoever wrote them has the same sense of humor and affinity for puns as I do. “Dying to become a fossil,” one heading read, going on to depict the death and fossilization of a lizard in the Badlands.

Then, I found the coolest trail in the park – which is to say, there was no actual outlined trail that I could see. In fact, the only reason I knew I could actually walk out there and explore without “breaking the rules” was because they put a sign out in the middle of the valley-like space, which was pretty much inviting me to hike out there.

The wide open spaces felt like they were mine to explore. I could have gotten lost in them – in the adventurous, freeing, Eat-Pray-Love way, not in the someone-call-a-park-ranger-Ana-has-gotten-totally-lost-in-the-Badlands-please-rescue-her kind of way. But maybe there’s not much of a difference.

My grandma trained me well – you can see me looking for any miraculous fossil or rock apparitions that would have somehow escaped the view of other hikers passing through. Sadly, I did not find any, though I wouldn’t have been able to keep them if I had.

After spending a few hours in the park, we realized we were never going to make it home if we continued at the rate we were going. We also were running out of gas, which had the potential to become problematic.

At that point, we’d been in the car for about four hours, and had about eight hours left on our drive. It was an encouraging feeling.

Nearly four hours later, at about 8:30 p.m., we were feeling a little bit like we were dying and like our muscles were dystrophying; but God save the Queen and Love’s Travel Stops, because there was a Cinnabon at the gas station.

It was like a light at the end of the tunnel.