Today we took a spin through Wall where some strange folks have built Wall Drug and the Badlands. We drove over first to the tire store and picked up our brand new wheel and not quite as new spare tire and only had to part with $121 which is a lot less than we expected to pay. The tire guys at Dale’s Tire were terrific.
From Dale’s we headed east on I-90 until we reached Wall, SD, home of Wall Drug. Wall Drug puts up scores of signs in South Dakota advertising their stuff (which seems to be almost everything except drugs) which you can spot as you approach the area from any direction. Outside SD, they put up signs indicating how many miles it is to Wall Drug. I even saw one of their signs indicating it was 5 thousand and some miles to Wall Drug from the river cruise dock in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
We stopped for a bit and went in to give the place a sniff. Wall Drug seems to be about a block long and a block deep and they seem to sell almost anything a tourist could desire. We spotted belts, cowboy hats, baseball hats with Wall Drug embroidered on the brim, key chains, shot glasses, drink cups, lots of candy, burgers, taffy, bumper stickers and a myriad of other shit items. We bought a belt and departed but not before almost stepping in some puke left in front of an amusement machine that tests one’s grip in the main hallway. Maybe someone ate a bit too much Wall Drug delicacies.
The main street of Wall becomes Highway 240 which is a big loop through the Badlands. We headed south on 240 through what is initially rolling prairie grasslands until we reached the edge of the Badlands which just start at a long line through SD. From the overlook when you look north, there is rolling hills of grass. Turn your gaze to the south and you will see what might be the most convoluted terrain imaginable for walking or wagons.
We descended down into the terrain and even though the place looks bleak for life, it seems to be everywhere. We spotted birds, hawks, whole towns of prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope, deer and, amazingly, buffalo which are not really buffalo but bison. Everyone just calls them buffalo but they are wrong. If someone wishes to see a buffalo, they should go to Africa.
The Badlands are big sections of easily eroded terrain and the erosion cuts through the material leaving an amazing array of colors arranged as layers in the soil. The colors are pretty spectacular – not as colorful as Bryce but certainly a lot bigger.
On our way back to our camp, we ran across something called Black Hills Speedway where we stopped in to watch the stock car and sprint car races. It is a half mile dirt track and the racing was pretty good, especially the street stock class. It looks like drivers find a 70s through 90s big block passenger cars and take them out to determine whose Sunday-Go-To-Meeting ride is the fastest on dirt. In the final heat, two cars bashed against each other down the final stretch until one of them pulled a nose ahead and won the day. Toward the end of the evening, in the final heat of the non-winged sprints, there was an enormous crash at the very start which took out almost all of the cars in the final heat so we left a little early instead of waiting for the half hour required to pick up all the now-disconnected parts of the formerly pretty racecars.