October 6 Rapid City to Granite Falls, Minnesota

Change time zones lose 1 hour. Central Time Zone

Wall Drug signs start their inundating drumbeat as soon as we leave Rapid City, making promises like “free ice water,” and “coffee 5 cents,” and we stop because you just have to, (although I vow, never again). We buy an overpriced ice cream cone, choosing Oreo from the limited choices. Ice cream at 10am is a road trip perk.  The whole place is a tired and downtrodden tourist trap.

A woman from Houston wants to chat and we hear her first-hand account of hurricane Harvey.

Opting for the cut-off that will give us a glimpse of the Badlands National Park we continue east at a slower pace while we admire the nearly treeless pinnacles and endless prairies, (and endless prairie dogs).

Badlands encompasses 240,000 acres. We enter at the Pinnacles entrance on the Badlands Loop Road and exit at the Northeast Entrance near the visitor center.

It’s only a drive-through but still we get a taste of this lonely spiritual place tinted with delicate shifting colors. Fascinating to observe.  Scenic overlooks abound.

Back on the freeway our prairie scenery is rarely interrupted.

We spot a goat bedded down on the grassland that resembles the biggest Billy Goat Gruff. No trolls in sight.  Also a gigantic metalwork dinosaur skeleton silhouetted against the prairie sky, and acre upon acre of sunflowers line both sides of the freeway bending their heads, moving in rhythm with the sun’s path.

The Missouri River cuts through it all.

Lodging:

Prairie View RV Park (associated with a casino)

5590 Prairies Edge Lane
Granite Falls, MN 56241

(320) 564-2121