Scenery that can be viewed both from the back seat of a car and explored up close on long, soul-searching hikes. Meals that contain only the white and brown food groups. Coffee so bitter and corrosive it could double as rust remover. Stuff so weird you have to photograph it so the folks back home will believe it.
These are the things that make road trips worth the gas.
South Dakota seemingly was custom-made for a road trip from Colorado. On a recent such journey, some friends and I packed a car with snacks and a dog who knows how to travel and made our way to Badlands National Park via Hot Springs, S.D. What follows are some of the highlights.
You have a few route options. The drive through Nebraska when you’re not in a hurry — an extra half-hour or so over the usual 5 1/2-hour trek to Hot Springs — bypasses the Interstate 25 traffic slog through Wyoming, and there are some sweet towns along the way. Also, from Hot Springs to the Badlands, it’s worth it to go the long way at least once to see the magnificent views from Red Shirt around Cuny Table and along the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Fossil Exhibit Trail, Badlands National Park, S.D.
A road trip isn’t complete unless you make new friends, and ours on this one turned out to be a well-traveled family from Marshalltown, Iowa, also on a road trip, having made the nine-hour trek to check out a part of the country that had long been on their list. Dad Michael Ambrose was fascinated by the rock layers, while mom Dini Ambrose kept remarking on the views. Meanwhile, Dylan and Ryder, barely 2, ran the equivalent of about 10 miles up and down the Fossil Exhibit boardwalk while we chatted. “We can put them on our backs and take them on the trails here, they’re so well marked, and it’s just gorgeous,” Michael said. Like us, the Ambroses were staying at Cedar Pass Lodge right in the park, which has magnificent views and a restaurant that serves surprisingly well-executed fare.
Cedar Pass Lodge, 20681 South Dakota 240, Interior, 605-433-5460, . Rates start at $85 for a cabin with two double beds.
Hot Springs, S.D.
Hot Springs isn’t hot springs the way Coloradans think of them — the indoor, often-packed Evans Plunge is more of a small indoor water park, with slides and water games, that happens to be fed by warm (87 degrees) mineral springs, instead of a hot, relaxing soak. Evans Plunge is a blast for the kids, though, and big people can squeeze into the hot tubs to escape the madness.
The town, lined with chunky sandstone buildings, many of which have been restored since they were built in the late 1800s, is handsome in a quiet, dusty way. And sitting just outside of town is an attraction that delights all ages: the skeletal remains of 58 woolly mammoths, at a site still being worked on each July (which is a fascinating time to swing by). If you plan well, kids can participate in the Junior Paleontologist Excavation Program, which costs $9 extra and runs from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. daily June and July. They use real tools at a simulated site, and they get filthy and won’t stop talking about it for, oh, forever. If you’re staying in Hot Springs, the .
Evans Plunge Indoor Pool and Mineral Spa, 1145 N. River St., 605-745-5165, . Admission: $12 ages 13 and up, $10 ages 3-12, Fridays half price. Hours vary by season. Mammoth Site, 1800 South Dakota 18, 605-745-6017, . Admission: $8 ages 13-59, $6 ages 5-12. hours vary by season.
Sage Creek Basin Overlook, Badlands, S.D.
Sometimes signs on a road trip are helpful, but sometimes they aren’t, such as the poorly written one near Pinnacles Overlook on our way to find the Badlands’ bison herd. After much discussion, we deciphered that they might be somewhere along the Sage Creek Rim Road, and sure enough, we had barely driven a few hundred yards past the more helpful but also amusing “Beware of Bison” sign than we found dozens of them scattered in small groups, most of them right along the side of the road. One even forced us to pull off onto the shoulder, lurching down the center of the gravel thoroughfare looking like a great, bearded shaman, pausing to fix us with a menacing stare for a moment before blowing a warning snort and then meandering off. Beware of not having enough memory in your camera flash card.
Badlands National Park, Entrance fee: $15 7-day vehicle pass; $30 annual; $80 America the Beautiful National Parks Pass.
Wall, S.D.
It’s comforting that Wall Drug still exists, probably most of all for the town of Wall, which likely would struggle without it. Wall lies 8 miles north of the Pinnacles Entrance to the Badlands, and it’s where most folks go to get gas, food and lodging if they aren’t staying in the park, but really they go to get a look-see at Wall Drug. Since 1931, the drugstore has been offering free ice water and 5-cent coffee, and over the years, it has expanded to such a point that it’s like a bloated shrine to all things Made in China. Still, it can be amusing to forage, and there are small shops within the big store devoted to legitimate Western apparel and jewelry, and little ones like to check out the animated dinosaurs and jackalope you can climb on.
However, if it’s a good cup of coffee or one of those fancy lattes you’re after, across town in the Wall Lube is an honest-to-goodness Espresso Bar, where, for six years, Bill Hamann, self-proclaimed “owner, manager, barista, jack-of-all- trades and the master of none” has offered sit-down or drive-through service. He’s closed Sundays because “that’s my day to go fishing,” he says, but the rest of the week, he delivers a smooth, foamy brew with a smile.
Wall Drug, 510 Main St., 605-279-2175, . Wall Lube & Espresso Bar, 201 South Blvd. W., 605-279-2227.
Cactus Flat, S.D.
Nothing says “stop here for a good time” like a 12-foot-high cement rodent the color of an uncooked hot dog slathered with French’s mustard. It sits near the highway by the northeast entrance to the Badlands that runs past The Ranch Store, a fairly famous souvenir purveyor that also serves as a front for a gang of prairie dogs who have worked the system so that suckers stop to drop 50 cents in exchange for “Prairie Dog Food” from a metal garbage can, which in fact holds neatly folded paper bags with scant amounts of … peanuts in the shell.
When the lid clatters back down, hordes of the somewhat obese critters begin their unrelenting movement toward the peanut-holders like zombies in “The Walking Dead” — adorable until the infighting starts. If the store is open, the candy selection and cheesy gift items are worth checking out.
The Ranch Store, 1 mile south of Exit 131 off Interstate 90 on South Dakota 240, Cactus Flat.
Saddle Pass Trail and Castle Trail, Badlands, S.D.
When a sign says, “This short but steep trail is not recommended when wet,” and you attempt it after a record-breaking 24 hours straight of rainfall, you deserve to fall and almost break your expensive camera. But the Saddle Pass Trail, billed as a strenuous and short trail that climbs up the Badlands Wall to a view over the White River Valley, was just too tempting, and so when we found ourselves sliding backward as we tried to hike up, all we could do was laugh. As the local we ran into said when he ran into us afterward, slicked from head to toe with mud, “I just put my finger into the sides of the mounds, and if it goes in up to the fingernail, I don’t try it.” We had better luck later in the day, when the sun had dried some of the top layer, hiking the Castle Trail, a moderate, 10-mile round-trip that can be done as an out-and-back and goes through some remote and picturesque formations.
Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Neb.
Who knew? This place houses an impressive collection of the things that were traded from the opening of a post established by the American Fur Co. in 1837: guns, blankets, beads, knives, trunks, tobacco boxes and jewelry, and of course, plenty of animal pelts. Not to mention that you can try to envision the interesting lives led by James Bordeaux, the post manager, and his two Brule Sioux wives, who were sisters and lived with him in the sod-roofed dwelling that also served as the trading post — it’s about the size of a one-car garage.
Museum of the Fur Trade, 6321 U.S. 20, Chadron, Neb., 308-432-3843,
Photos by Kyle Wagner, The Denver Post; photo illustration, The Denver Post
Kyle Wagner: 303-954-1599, travel@denverpost.com, ,
