Located in southwest South Dakota, the Badlands National Park is comprised of 379 square miles of stunningly beautiful rock formations and protected grasslands. The area was first designated as a National Monument in 1939 and re-designated as a National Park in 1978. To learn the difference between a Park and Monument read this.

The Park is co-managed by the National Park Service and the Oglala Lakota Tribe. The area comprising the park was originally part of the Oglala Sioux reservation.

The deposition that created the rock formations began 75 million years ago with the Pierre Shale, and ended 28 million years ago with the Sharps formation which is composed of volcanic ash. In between the lower and upper layers are Yellow Mounds, Chadron and Bruce Formations.

The North Unit of the Park can be toured using the “Badlands Loop Road” route 240. The park is habituated by Bison, Bighorn sheep and Prairie dogs.

We drove the loop road from the South which took us to Wall, SD. Home of the well-know “Wall Drug“. We didn’t visit Wall Drug but did frequent a local coffee shop and Mexican food truck for Brunch. The food and coffee were fantastic.

Sharing this advertisement for a Mexican restaurant (not the truck above) that we saw multiple times during our drive through South Dakota.

Coming soon: Four Presidents and bourbon.