Badlands National Park

The final National Park stop of our National tour: Badlands National Park!

We came in from the Western most gate (the main gate comes in the middle of the park, from the North), as we were coming from Black Hills, stayed overnight outside the North gate, and then exited the next day through the Eastern gate. I highly recommend this route (or in reverse), as you truly get to enjoy all of the park in a linear journey, where you would be doubling back somewhere along the line if you started from the North Entrance.

Of note, the western road of the park is unpaved but maintained. It just is a bit slower going because of this. We enjoyed SO MANY buffalo, prairie dogs, and mountain sheep! It was such a vastly different landscape then we had been experiencing the the previous few weeks! We even got to experience a crazy intense thunder and lightning storm that came out from no where, and a big horn sheep fight!