We Made it to the Badlands!

It was much easier to get up and on the road on Day 2. We said we wanted to leave by 8am and actually ended up leaving the cabin in Wisconsin at 7:55am!

We crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa and stopped at a Kwik Trip to fill up on gas and grab some breakfast foods and snacks to sustain us during the long drive ahead. 

We planned to drive as far as possible without stopping, but by 10:30am I had to pee SOOOOOO BAD, so we pulled over at a rest stop. There was a small playground and the kids climbed around on it for about 5 minutes and then we got back on the road.

We crossed into South Dakota and shortly after (around 1:30pm) we stopped for lunch at McDonald's and filled up on gas. It was $4.49/gallon and we loaded up with 24.552 gallons. Odometer was at 166,675 so we had driven 308 miles at that point.

Then we drove more and more through South Dakota, which was pretty flat most of the time. We found an exit off the interstate that had both a Dollar Tree and a Culver's. We had coupons for free ice cream for the kids that we wanted to use. On some of our past trips we had bought notebooks and art supplies at a Dollar Tree so they could have trip journals and the kids really wanted to do that again, so we loaded up on stickers and notebooks. There was also a Walmart so we stopped there and stocked up on all the groceries we will need for camping for the next three days.

From there we only had 3 more hours to drive until the Badlands. 

Here's our van on the road! Photo Credit: Gram

We arrived at around 6:30pm - total miles traveled: 569. Fortunately the entrance station was still staffed at that time so we were able to purchase an annual pass to the National Parks. Score!

We are staying at Badlands Motel and Campground in Interior, SD, which is only a few minutes from the park. We selected a camp site (incredible views!) and set up our big tent. 

We plan to sleep in the van, but it's nice having a tent set up for several reasons:

• Reserves our campsite while we are driving around during the day so nobody else takes it
• We can unload some things out of the van so it's not so crowded inside
• We use it as a changing room because it's much easier to change in a tent than in the van
• We can all sit around a table inside and play games or whatever and be protected from bugs and sun

At that point it was about 7:30pm. The kids were anxious to go climbing around in the Badlands and we still had about an hour until sunset, so we decided to hike the Window Trail. 

The Window Trail is a short easy 150-yard walk along a boardwalk which ends with a nice viewpoint that has a dramatic view of the Badlands. My kids' favorite thing about Badlands National Park is that they allow "free hiking," which basically means you are allowed to go wherever you like instead of being confined to marked trails. So they climbed around wherever they wanted until after sunset, which was gorgeous. 

There are 5 Yatzecks in this photo...can you spot them all?

Mary and Joey had fun taking photos and making Snapchat stories.

We went back to the campsite and we were all pretty much exhausted after two long days of driving, so we went to bed without a campfire or anything. Excited for the next two full days we have to spend here in the Badlands!