A Bad Badlands Bump

My mobile Internet connection bombed last night, so here I sit at The Original Pancake House in Sioux Falls, nerding away on my laptop in the middle of the breakfast crowd.

Not exactly an auspicious start to my vacation.

That’s a bit of an overstatement. Honestly, the lack of a reliable Internet connection was the only part of the trip that hasn’t gone according to plan. Otherwise, the car ride across the state of South Dakota was perfect. We didn’t leave until mid-afternoon, but that made for some fantastic colors around sunset, not to mention good traveling weather. It was right around 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius) when we left, and it cooled down from there. No rain, no wind, and even the bugs weren’t so bad. I will say that the windshield did look like an insect battlefield by 300 miles or so…

My wife and I are making a quick trip from the Black Hills out east to visit her grandparents, which makes this a bit of a Black Hills vacation in reverse. But since I’m traveling the same route you’ll probably take to get there, the same general principles apply.

Take timing. Fall couldn’t be a better time to travel around the Black Hills. The weather’s been fantastic, the roads have been anything but crowded and the scenery has been amazing. We drove past the Badlands just before sunset yesterday, and the yellows and oranges coming off their cliffs were just stunning – and that was just from the Interstate. We had planned to stop for several hours and do some real exploring along the Badlands Loop Road, which takes you into the North Unit of Badlands National Park. Then again, we had planned to leave about five hours earlier than we actually did.

Okay, so maybe the Internet connection wasn’t the *only* part of the trip that didn’t go according to plan.

Fortunately, we’ll be a lot less rushed on the way back, so we’ll be able to stop and do some hiking around then. But our itinerary goof proves a valuable point: plan as much time as you can for your Black Hills vacation, and definitely plug in a couple of hours (or better) for the Badlands. It’s really worth the trip, and you’ll probably be disappointed if you miss them. They’re probably one of the most distinctive geographical features on the planet.