The temperature Tuesday was in the high 80’s and low 90’s, but it felt like the 100’s. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was merciless. Our mission for the day was to tour the entire Badlands Loop.
Our campground; “Badlands Interior Campground” is located just outside the south entrance to the park and just north of the small town of Interior. We took advantage of the small breakfast menu they served here at the campground office; pancakes, french toast, biscuits & gravy, and really good sausage links.
While we were near the office, Stilla, Kaan, and I paid to stay here for one more day. My Dad & Elaine plan on leaving us Wednesday to start heading back towards Colorado Springs. They will go back to the last campground we were at in Hermosa for one more night to meet up with Biff & Linda who are still there, and then move on from there. We’re still not sure where we’ll head to next, but that’s the fun of full-timing.
After breakfast, we all piled into my Dad’s Jeep one last time for a tour of the Badlands Loop. We entered the park’s south gate, aka ‘Interior Entrance’ on Hwy 377 where I showed my disabled veteran access pass which got us in for free. The pass is good at all national parks but doesn’t do any good at most state parks. Just inside the south entrance is the parks’ Cedar Pass Campground. We decided to check it out for future reference and did a quick drive-thru.
This sign shows the rates: (click picture to view full size)
With only a handful of electric sites available, I don’t think we’ll stay here anytime soon. A lot of the sites are close together and are really just pull-offs to the side of the road, if anyone is running their generator it could get quite annoying. No trees or cover to speak of either.
We turned left on 240 at the T-intersection here to start our Badlands Loop tour…
So follow along now on our Badlands Loop tour…
Stilla and Kaan walked up the trail a little ways…
And then they had to come back down without slipping…
We continued west, stopping at almost every one of the many scenic overlooks…
At the Fossil Exhibit Trail, we arrived just in time for a ranger talk…
More scenic overlooks…
We left 240 and turned onto Sage Creek Rim Road (dirt) thereby extended our tour by about 15 or 20 miles…
Views along Sage Creek Rim Road; Hay Butte Overlook & Sage Creek Basin Overlook…
Can you spot the Bighorn sheep in the picture below…
We stopped to check out the prairie dog town…
Sage Creek Road dumped us back onto 240 just south of the town of Wall and the intersection to I-90. We took I-90 east to exit 131 which leads to the Badlands National Park northeast entrance where we first entered the park with the rigs a couple days ago.
We heard about the Minuteman Missile Visitors Center that is on the north side of our exit and decided to check it out.
The Minuteman Missile Visitors Center has ample parking for big rigs if you ever want to stop by.
We found out that the Visitors Center is not where the missile silos are located. There are two sites; Delta-01 and Delta-09 (see map below). The Visitors Center takes reservations-only for tours of Delta-01, and the limited number of reservations are all gone in the early morning. Delta-09 has a self-guided tour and we could go there, but if you look at the map (below), you’ll see that we passed it at exit 116 about 15 miles back. We didn’t want to backtrack to see it at this time. Wish we would have known about that beforehand.
We watched the documentary after a short orientation talk from a retired missileer / volunteer ranger in this theater.
And then we toured the center which only recently opened as you can see from the makeshift exhibits taped to the walls…
Their final exhibits will be installed in September…
Some of you may recall that Stilla and I had the opportunity to tour the Titan II Missile Museum site near Tucson, AZ earlier this year (link HERE) if you’d like to see more. Too bad we didn’t get to see more than just the visitors center for the Minuteman. Maybe next time 🙂
We continued on back into the Badlands National Park through the northeast entrance and worked our way back to our campground on the southeast side – this time we passed by all the overlooks without stopping since we toured this route the previous day. We dropped off our little dog “Coach” at the Coach after we ran up the AC and then we went back into the park to enjoy dinner at the Cedar Pass Lodge restaurant located next to the Ben Reifel Visitors Center. Then it was relaxation time back at the campground…
It’s now early afternoon (Wednesday) as I finish up this post. My Dad & Elaine hooked up, dumped, and left the campground this morning. We’ll stay put today to relax and do whatever… it’s our 32nd Wedding Anniversary today… Happy Anniversary to my dear wife Stilla!
We might head back towards Rapid City tomorrow… stay tuned…