Many times when talking about the first part of our trip, people mentioned the boring drive of the Dakota’s. Hours and hours of nothing that just needs to be passed to get where you are going. While I can kind of can see peoples point, the eastern portion two thirds are fairly homogenous on first inspection as you fly by on interstate 90 or 94. But I would challenge you to take some backroads instead, with 65 – 70 speed limit and set up on a grid pattern, they aren’t much slower than the interstate and quite a bit more interesting.
Our first stop was in the Sheyenne National Grasslands, which I already mentioned
We then zigzagged mostly west but a little north through North Dakota to reach Roosevelt National Park north unit. While all ranch land, farmland or open prairie, the scenery is constantly shifting as the lands change. And each little town has its own charm. The park is built around Roosevelts failed ranch and the canyons around the Little Missouri River, we stayed at both the north and south unit campgrounds, each was small and quiet, the whole park was relatively quiet and the views were amazing. Here we also saw a lot of Bison and Prairie dogs, the highlight of our animal sighting was when Charissa picked out a Coyote hunting in the prairie dog town.
From there we headed south to the Badlands, this drive was actually my favorite part, it was nearly all ranch land. But from the ranch land we marvelled at huge butts rose out of the prairie.
The Badlands are usually taken in by most people as its a short detour from the highway. But definitely worth the extra drive time. Nowhere else can you see such unique geologic features.
The Black Hills were overall my favorite, we stayed a couple nights on Angostura reservoir and on Sheridan Lake. A couple of days it warmed up enough for me to paddle board on each of these.
We had a rain day in Hot Springs, hanging out at a coffee shop, touring the mammoth site which was very cool, and swimming in Evan’s plunge, a natural hot springs pool. It was a good day in this cute little town and also a good one for a rain day with kids, as they would like both of the sites we visited.
The Black Hills themselves are beautiful, with a few granite mountains springing up in the middle. Wind cave was cool, but unfortunately we couldn’t do a tour as the elevator was broken. Mount Rushmore was worth a few minute stop, though it feels like a tourist trap, and besides the photo, there wasn’t much to do. Crazy horse I liked much better, while expensive to get into, it goes towards a good cause and there was much more in the museum to learn about Indian culture, the community efforts like the college and the crazy guy who started building it all. It was cool to think about dedicating your life to such a thing, knowing you wouldn’t finish it, he had quite a vision for much more than just the carving.
My favorite part of the Black Hills was Spearfish canyon, definitely take a detour through this, a beautiful forested canyon, with red cliffs poking out and some nice waterfalls.
While not technically the Dakotas, just over the border and still in the Black Hills is Devils tower. This is an amazing butte rising from out of nowhere formed by columnar basalt, smiler to giants causeway, hexagonal columns formed during the cooling of lava. Definitely worth the detour off the highway, and surrounded by nice campgrounds. The fee to get in was steep though $25, so unless you have an annual National Park pass, I would skip going in, you can get the views without entering the park, it the accompanying museum had little additional information.
While two thirds of the Dakotas are a bit on the boring side, the last third more than makes up for this. Next time you are travelling through, take a few more days to enjoy these natural treasures.
