The town of Interior, population 76 according to the sign, is just south of the park’s upper unit. I asked the host of the campsite (the lady that told me about the showers) if there was a restaurant in Interior and she said “All they got is one grocery store, two hotels, and three churches.”
I drove down to the Budget Host Inn to buy a shower. It turns out that there is also a bar in Interior with a sign that said “pizza and buffalo burgers.” It also said “Bikers Welcome.”
The bar was decorated exactly as you would expect a biker bar would. Bras hung from steer horns over the bar. Dollar bills were stapled all over the walls and ceilings, signed by the bikers that passed through. Formica-top booths, a pool table, a crooked low ceiling, etc.
There were no burgers so I got the pizza, which ended up being a frozen pizza that the bartender, the daughter of nearby ranchers, stuck in an oven for me.
On the far left of the bar sat two Australian girls. Their rented ’65 Cadillac was parked out front, their apparent car of choice for their American road trip. They were yapping it up with the bartender, who was sick but decided to work anyway since there was no one else to do it.
A little while later, after the Aussies were a bit drunk, three Lakota men walked in, seemingly high but who knows. Two sat between the girls and I. The small talk that followed somehow led to a discussion of race. “What do you prefer to be called, Indians or Native Americans?” one asked. “Lakota.” She followed “Are there any stereotypes about your people? Like in Australia we have the Aboriginal who are drunk all the time.” “Like us” said the man next to me. “Yeah” she said. We all got a good laugh at that one. I chatted a little with the guy next to me as his two friends continued to try to have a conversation with the girls. His name was Leon Little Killer.
We turned to listen in on the other conversation only to hear “Like, in our country, ‘porch monkey’ isn’t so bad.”
This morning I woke up to the sound of Germans again. It turns out that two guys set up their tent on my site and were being yelled at by the camp host. Seriously…
After that I went over to the Door trail for the ‘geology talk.’ The guy talking was not a geologist, but had been hiking the badlands for 25 years and now volunteers there. He claims that he’s only seen a rattlesnake four times. When I told him that I was laid off and driving around he exclaimed ‘Road Trip 09!’
After the talk I hiked Castle Trail, which is about six miles one-way, over to the Fossil trail where a fossil talk was happening. I got there the minute the talk started, which I thought was pretty impressive given that it was about a three-hour hike.
On the way back I took Medicine Loop trail, which is a little longer but gets back to the same place as Castle Trail. I saw only 4 or 5 people on the way there and none on the way back. I did find a fossil though, loose in the middle of the trail. I took pictures and filled out the form back at the visitor center for the paleontologist.
The Germans woke me up at 5am, before the sun came up. They were loud and close by, using my picnic table. Finally they left and I slept until about 8 o’clock.
I drove back to the east side of the badlands, the most-visited side where there is a visitor center, amphitheater, restaurant, and $10 campsite. I figured I’d stay at that campsite while I did the trails on that side. I reserved my spot, set up my tent, and went over to the visitor center to get info.
I asked the lady at the visitor center what was in the lower unit and she said “More badlands.” She also pointed out a road down there that I could drive if I had a high-clearance vehicle (I do).
After breakfast I hiked all the nearby trails, which are all less than 3 miles each. The two most interesting were Notch, which takes you up a steep incline to a grand vista, and Door, which drops you into an open badlands area. Window and Cliff were not really hikes, more like walks on a boardwalk.
After that I got ice at the lodge and headed back to camp for a nap. When I woke up I asked the camp host if there were showers anywhere, but she said there were none in the park. But there is a motel/campground a few miles down the road called the Budget Host Inn, which offers showers, but she didn’t know for how much. So I took a ride down to the Inn on my bike to ask: $3.50. When I got back I stopped by the host site again to tell her the price, but her husband was there reading at the picnic table. When I got his attention he had to put the book down, take off his glasses, and walk over to my bike. I told him the showers were $3.50 but he didn’t seem to care. He seemed more bothered by my interrupting his reading. They were an old couple in an RV.
At my campsite I tried to find a radio station on my camp radio. On AM I could only get Rush Limbaugh. On FM I was happy to find NPR doing a jazz segment with jazz songs that related to labor (it was labor day). For example, they played Ella’s ‘Nice Work if You Can Get It.’
Kadoka is pretty close to the badlands so I arrived pretty early. It was a couple hours drive across the badlands from east to west, where the free ‘primitive’ campsite is. Along the way were prairie dogs, bison, deer and bighorn sheep. The road was dirt for the second half of the drive.
The campsite was pretty empty, a big grassy field with two compost toilets. I picked a spot and set up my tent. A park worker pulled up nearby and ate lunch at a picnic table. I asked her a few questions about hiking and animals. She told me that the rattlesnakes are denning now and they had a family nearby. Also, the bison can be aggressive so don’t approach them. No one ever sees the bobcats. I asked her about the lower unit of the park, “What is down there?” She said “more badlands.”
In the badlands you can hike anywhere, but you cannot have campfires. I did a short hike up a hill near the camp. There weren’t really trails, but there were some worn spots where people and horses had previously gone. There are no bears in the badlands; the things to watch out for are rattlesnakes. Also, you have to be careful about the bison, give them their space. They can run 30 miles an hour.
After the short hike I drove to Wall, a small town about 15 miles (1 hr drive) from the campsite. The town is named Wall because of the geological ‘wall’ that runs east to west through the badlands (so I was told). A long time ago, Wall Drug opened and grew into a collection of all types of stores. They are famous for their free ice water and five cent coffee. What they don’t have is a good camping supplies store.
When I got back to the campsite I was pretty tired. While I cooked some food, two bison wandered through the camp. They are huge.
As I got ready to sleep three minivans full of Germans pulled up and started setting up camp next to me. They were loud, gathering in a big circle to talk. Everyone else in the camp was quiet. Around 8 I got into my tent to sleep. About an hour later I was woken up by the Germans who came over to my picnic table (the camp had about a dozen tables, one of which I camped next to) and started cooking their food there. It’s not just that they were cooking, but they were talking loudly right next to my tent. Very bad camping etiquette. Just when it was getting quiet, I heard guitar music. Specifically, I heard ‘Let It Be.’ This was the only song the guy would play, for 30 minutes.
Kadoka, ND, population 736. I stopped at the Roadway Inn, primarily because they said ‘Free Internet’ on the sign. There was a restaurant right next to the motel, owned by the same people as the motel. I had a buffalo burger there, kinda dry as buffalo tends to be, and pretty well done on a grill.
I started writing, but got tired and fell asleep instead.
It’s hard to avoid all the billboards next to the highway pulling you towards the Corn Palace. It is basically what you’d imagine, a palace covered in corn: cobs, husks, grass, etc. It was started in the 1892 as a way to get people to move there and work on farms. From the pictures you can see that there used to be a lot of people living here, working in the farming industry, before mechanized farming. The design on the outside walls changes every year. This year two big murals were of the Corn Palace itself and Mount Rushmore.
I also swung by an Indian Ruins location, where about 1000 years ago there lived a group of Indians who built about a dozen homes. Only the foundations exist now, indentations in the land. Two or three of the homes have been excavated, which seems few. I asked the worker why the others have not and she said they just haven’t gotten to them yet. The archeologist only works here in July each year, helped by some interns from England. So it takes many, many years to do just a little work.
After that I had a jalapeno hot dog at the general store and went across the street to the Jitters, a local coffee shop that boasts “world’s best coffeehouse” (they also have smoothies and chair massages). The lady making my ice coffee asked me where I’m from, since she couldn’t pin my accent. I told her New York, but I’m an Army brat so my accent is mixed. She was a 44-year-old Air Force brat and she blames this fact for her inability to make friends. I didn’t quite get that but nodded.
This is an attraction beside the highway where the owner of the land has set up a collection of artifacts to replicate a 19th century town. It started when a movie was being made nearby, and when they left, they left behind the set, which the owner of the land used to start his town. He then began collecting authentic artifacts and replacing the set.
There are big pieces like homes and trains, but also lots of small junk like tools. There is also a small church and a homestead, where turkeys, a couple of longhorns, and some mules live.
When I left they owner said “That was fast.” He said it normally takes a couple of hours to go through, but I’m guessing that is if you are with a group or family. There’s only so much time one person can spend there.
There is a nice rest stop with a scenic overlook just west of Sioux City. I parked and walked out to the cliff edge to see the river and surrounding landscape.
An old couple was out there too. I offered to take their picture but her camera was out of batteries. It was an old film point-and-shoot; her digital was stolen. I had some batteries in the car so I gave her two, but never did take their photo. They were from Iowa and they just met on the road, although it seemed they had been together a long time. We talked a little bit about politics and they were conservative but didn’t like Bush at all, mostly because the country’s broke. They mentioned the government’s failure with Katrina too.
We also agreed that the economy is very complex and there’s not a whole lot anyone can do to affect it in big ways and also that it’s harder to pinpoint how we got to this point than it is to predict where we can go based on our decisions today. Also, gas is expensive!
There was a spigot with free water, so I filled up two gallon jugs and my water bottle.
I left the Adrian campsite and got back on the highway. I stopped at a rest stop that had an information center, where I picked up some brochures on different things to do in South Dakota—biking, hiking, horseback riding, caving. I asked the lady working there about Hot Springs, a town on the south end of the Black Hills. She said there are hot running streams there. I said “I guess there’s lava down there.” She said “We don’t know what’s down there. It’s just hot water.”
I stopped for breakfast at a friendly diner in Sioux City. Then I drove through town to get to Falls Park. There used to be a flour mill at this falls, which included a seven-story building; only the first floor walls remain.
There were some teens jumping off the rocks next to the falls. I was able to get a couple of pics of this before a park employee told them to get down. She told me that a young boy had gone over the falls recently.
I stayed about an hour then visited the historical marker on top of a nearby hill before getting back on the highway.
The road after Winona went through rolling hills, lots of cows, and many windmills as far as the eye can see.
I stopped for the night in Adrian. I actually pulled off the highway sooner trying to follow a ‘camping’ sign, but it seems these signs are not always helpful. The Adrian campsite was filled with RVs, I assume people taking advantage of the holiday weekend. It was like a KOA place. I had soup and an oatmeal raisin cookie for dinner. There were a ton of mosquitoes here. I was bit even though I covered my skin with quality repellent.
Adrian is about 40 miles east of Sioux City.
