Great National Grasslands Boondocking Spot - Wall Drug - Badlands National Park

We moved from Elk Mountain to a boondocking spot near Wall, SD.  This is a great spot, probably the best boondocking spot we have had.  It is on Buffalo Gap National Grasslands land and overlooks the north edge of Badlands National Park (we are within sight of the entrance to the National Park). We are on a bluff overlooking the South Dakota Badlands a couple hundred feet below.

Our Route

  Our Site - no one real close  - also, our new solar panels - we have four 100 watt panels on the roof and just added two more 100 watt panels that we can position on the ground - they are working out great

View from the window of the camper

View from the window of the camper

View from the window of the camper

Wall Drug

Wall Drug is a famous tourist stop in Wall, South Dakota - it is somewhat like "South Of The Border" in South Carolina with frequent billboards on the Interstate for 100 miles before you get there.  It is mainly a tourist trap with an enormous gift shop, several places to eat and a few other shops.  

They have a few animatronic displays that were built in the 50's and are still working

Donna with a Don Imus look alike

This animatronic display was quite good - they even kept time to the music

The obligatory jackalope

Badlands National Park

Several Views Of The Park

A heard of mule deer around a watering hole

Big Horn Sheep On A Steep Cliff - these were all females and lambs - didn't see any rams with the big horns

Mother and lamb

Same mother and lamb

A few buffalo at prairie dog town - if you look close you can see 3 prairie dogs in the foreground.  We found out that the buffalo prefer to graze around prairie dog towns because the grass has more nutrients in it - we looked for this and it was pretty consistent that when you saw buffalo, there were prairie dogs nearby

Buffalo Close-ups

Mount Rushmore - Black Hills - Custer State Park

Monday we moved from Platte River RV Park in Wyoming to Elk Mountain Campground in The Black Hills near Hot Springs, South Dakota.   Elk Mountain is a National Park campground with no services (no electric/water at camp sites and almost no cell phone coverage - no internet).    We spent a week here as there was a lot to see and we wanted to stay put over the Memorial Day weekend as it is hard to find campgrounds with availability on holiday weekends. 

Our Route

Our Campsite - all of the campsites were just pull-offs beside the road

Campground

 Campground

Double rainbow the first night

Mount Rushmore

We thoroughly enjoyed Mount /Rushmore which wasn't too far from the campground 

The entrance to Mount Rushmore

Bronze sculpture done by Lincoln Borglum as a tribute to his father, Gutzon Borglum who created Mount Rushmore (Lincoln completed it after the death of his father)

View from the base

Close-up

View through a crevice in a cave on the trail to the base of the monument

Another view from the trail

This is the view from the end of the trail

View of George Washington from the road leading to Mount Rushmore

Crazy Horse

About 20 miles down the road is the Crazy Horse Monument that has been in the works since its conception in the late 1930's. This is a privately funded work that is yet to be completed

Crazy Horse - Note the painted outline of the horses head on the right

This is the artists conception of the completed sculpture

Close-up of Crazy Horse

Custer State Park

We took the 18 mile scenic wildlife drive through Custer State Park which is just a few miles from the campground - lots of prairie dogs

Mother and pup

Heard of wild buffalo grazing

Huge bull buffalo

There was always a flock of birds around the buffalo

Bird getting a free ride across the road

Lots of pronghorns (American antelope)

Wild burro - burros were used on tours of nearby mountains up until the 60's - when this business folded they let the burros go wild and there is a significant population of wild burros and mules in the park

This one looks more like a horse so it is likely a mule