Travel from Badlands to Hot Springs, South Dakota

We drove our coach 132 miles, about 2 hours of driving, from Badlands, South Dakota to Hot Springs, South Dakota.

Here’s the map route, heading west then south:

Route

An interactive map:

As mentioned yesterday, I added a mount for my 360 camera to the truck; it’s a magnetic mount, but I also secured it with three tethers, out of an abundance of caution:

Camera mount on truck

The camera mounted on the truck; I thought it would be fun to record the view from the truck on travel day:

Camera mounted on truck

The truck connected to the coach (aka toaded); ready to go:

Truck connected to coach

After leaving the campground, crossing White River:

White River

Badlands:

Badlands

Cowboy Corner in Interior, South Dakota:

Cowboy Corner

Badlands:

Badlands

A prairie dog town:

Prairiedog town

Bison:

Bison

Roadworks:

Roadworks

I caught a stowaway wasp:

Wasp

Badlands

Leaving Badlands National Park; the Badlands was good:

Leaving Badlands

The roads were not so good (using my max-zoom technique to show the bumps):

Rough road

Big sunflower field going to seed:

Big sunflower field going to seed

Dinosaur:

Dinosaur

Road

Travel center lunch stop:

Travel center lunch stop

The camera was still there (I took it inside to secure and charge it during our lunch stop; check out today’s travel video for the fun footage):

Camera still there

Travel center lunch stop

Questionable food choices:

Questionable food choices

Onward:

SD-79

The Mammoth Site:

The Mammoth Site

The city of Hot Springs has some nice historic architecture:

Hot Springs

Our destination:

Our destination

Our site:

Our site

Our coach:

Our coach

Again, check out the travel video in the next post for a combination of the usual coach dash cam footage plus the 360 cam perspective from the truck. An unusual view!

(And if you haven’t yet subscribed to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel, please do so. It doesn’t cost anything, but will help me build my channel, which will let me do more with it.)

Video

Video: Badlands National Park timelapse

A series of clips of timelapse video from my 360 camera as we explored Badlands National Park.

360 camera mount on truck

I have an Insta360 X3 action camera, that you may have seen footage from in previous posts. When capturing video or a timelapse of a drive, I’ve previously held the invisible selfie stick out the window, which is a bit awkward.

So I thought I’d get a mount to attach it to the roof of the truck.

I opted for a magnetic mount, since our truck is often a bit dirty after being dragged behind our motorhome, or driving on dirt roads, so I thought a suction cup mount may not work well.

To avoid risking losing the camera if the magnets fail, I secured it with three safety tether cords; I initially only used one, but added a couple more when I wanted to use the camera on a travel day, since I would be in the coach and wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on it. (I removed the camera during a lunch stop, both so nobody steals it, and to recharge it for the remainder of the trip.)

Here’s the camera mount and tethers on our dusty truck:

Camera mount

One of the tethers was secured to the side mirror:

Secured to mirror

And the other two were secured to back seat ceiling grab handles:

Secured to grab handle

Another angle:

Camera mount

The 360 camera on the mount, oriented sideways for reduced wind resistance:

360 camera on mount

I don’t leave the mount and tethers there all the time, though they’re pretty unobtrusive, and fun for recording scenic drives and coach travel days. I might try variations on this placement in the future.

Stay tuned for a travel day video tomorrow, with a picture-in-picture of the back of the coach from this camera!

Wall Drug

Near Badlands National Park is the town of Wall, South Dakota, and a famous roadside tourist attraction called Wall Drug Store, or simply Wall Drug. (Wikipedia.)

Billboards along I-90:

Billboards along I-90

Wall

Map:

Wall Drug

We had lunch in the cafe:

Wall Drug

A special gravy-smothered sandwich:

Wall Drug

The “backyard”:

Wall Drug

Their first attraction, free ice water:

Wall Drug

Cheesetastic.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

“World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less, or your next one is free.”

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site features a visitor center, Delta-01 missile control center, and Delta-09 missile silo of the Minuteman II nuclear missile system.

Visitor Center:

Visitor Center

We did a ranger-guided tour of the Delta-01 Launch Control Center (which requires an advance reservation):

Delta-01 Launch Control Center

A small elevator down:

Delta-01 Launch Control Center

A big door:

Delta-01 Launch Control Center

A video of a simulated missile launch:

Delta-09 Missile Silo:

Delta-09 Missile Silo

Badlands National Park

We visited Badlands National Park several times while staying nearby. Badlands was good lands; we enjoyed exploring the park.

Here’s a map; most of the scenic stuff is in the North Unit:

An interactive map:

Entrance sign

Relief map in the visitor center:

Relief map in visitor center

Exhibits in visitor center:

Exhibits in visitor center

Pressed penny:

Pressed penny

Badlands:

Badlands

The Stronghold Unit visitor center:

Stronghold visitor center

Badlands

Back to the North Unit:

Badlands

RVers camping on the top of the wall:

RVers camping on the top of the wall

Big horn sheep:

Badlands

Cows on the road:

Cows

Badlands

We enjoyed the badlands.

Badlands / White River KOA Holiday

We stayed at Badlands / White River KOA Holiday in Interior, South Dakota. (Campground Reviews listing.)

Yet another KOA, quite nice, right outside Badlands National Park.

Dates:

Check in: 2023-09-03
Check out: 2023-09-17
14 nights

Weather:

Everything from sunny to thunderstorms
High temps ranging between 67-99°F, lows around 50-67°F
Afternoon gusts up to 33 MPH

Noise:

Occasional road noise, not annoying
No train noise
Negligible neighbor noise

Site:

#20, pull-through, gravel
Needed to disconnect toad; parked behind coach
Fairly level
Gravel driveway about 60 feet long by about 8 feet wide
Patio and grass on passenger side about 42 feet wide
Grass between driver side and next site about 20 feet wide
Some big trees
Table, chairs, charcoal grill, and weird fire pit on concrete patio
Clean site

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
55 PSI water, conveniently located
Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 78-133 Mbps down, 10-14 Mbps up, 78-138 ms ping
Campground Wi-Fi: 36-42 Mbps down, 21-32 ms up, 56 ms ping
AT&T: negligible service
Verizon: 13-23 Mbps down, 8-11 Mbps up, 35 ms ping
T-Mobile: 2 Mbps down, 0.06 Mbps up, 70 ms ping

Amenities:

Pool
Garbage pickup from site
Package delivery to office
Cook shack food

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Cook Shack and close to Badlands NP

What’s not to love about a park that has food service onsite? I definitely appreciate it, especially when other options are few and far between. We had a deluxe patio site, which was located at the end of a row. The site had a few trees for afternoon shade, which was nice. The site was not huge, however, and we had to park our tow vehicle perpendicular to the coach; I still worried about our bumper getting clipped as the roads are pretty narrow and there are some tight turns. It was pretty quiet, and the proximity to Badlands NP can’t be beat. We camped at Badlands / White River KOA Holiday in a Motorhome.

Tip for Other Campers: Stock up on bottled water before arriving. The local water is very alkaline and hard, which made it pretty much undrinkable (unless you like that sort of thing; our three-stage filter and water softener still didn’t improve it). The mosquitos are voracious, so ensure you have repellant if you want to sit outside. Plan ahead and get tickets for the control room tour at Minuteman Missile NHS. You get a pretty personalized tour and a good feel for what it was like to serve there.

The campground map:

Map

We stayed in site #20, which we had site-locked as what looked like the best site when we booked. Once here, and after walking around the campground, I can confirm; it is definitely the best site. There are some very long sites towards the back of the campground, but they are buddy sites (i.e. living areas facing the neighbor), which we hate.

An interactive map:

Our site, on the end of the row:

Our site

Using the Starlink on the flagpole:

Our site

Our patio:

Our patio

The patio came with a wacky fire pit thingy, and a charcoal grill, though we didn’t use either, but did use our Blackstone griddle:

Our patio

The RV park is near Badlands National Park, so we were able to add that sticker to our coach, starting another row (I’ll need a stepstool to add them soon!):

National Park stickers on our coach

Sunset:

Sunset

We normally drink water from the dispenser on our fridge. But not here — even the five filters the water passes through weren’t able to make the water here taste good; our test strips indicate that the water has very high pH and alkalinity, which the filters can’t help with:

Water test strip

We did our full suite of test strips; everything else was fine:

Test strips

Early in our stay the air was rather unhealthy due to wildfire smoke from Canada:

Unhealthy air

Smoke map (a blue dot near the middle is our location):

Smoke map

We also had lightning and heavy rain nearby (blue location dot off to the right; the weather heading that way):

Lightning and rain map

We got a bunch of packages delivered here; I used my folding cart to collect the heaviest of them:

Cart full of packages

The office and camp store:

Office

A nice feature of this campground is the cook shack (or “kookhouse”) that was open for breakfast and dinner every day:

Cook shack

Menus:

Menus

The next door pavilion for eating and activities:

Pavilion

A tasty breakfast:

Breakfast

A dinner:

Dinner

There were a lot of flies buzzing around, so I took the dinner back to our site and ate on the patio:

Dinner on our patio

A strange historic artifact; kids, ask your parents:

Phone booth

Swmming pool:

Swmming pool

Dog park:

Dog park

Dog shower, with mini golf in the background:

Dog shower

Path:

Path

Lots of tent sites:

Tent sites

Cabins:

Cabins

Other sites:

Other sites

Entrance sign:

Entrance sign

Video

Video: Spearfish to Badlands, South Dakota motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 127 miles from Spearfish, South Dakota to Badlands, South Dakota.

Travel from Spearfish to Badlands, South Dakota

We drove our coach 127 miles, about 2 hours of driving, from Spearfish, South Dakota to Badlands, South Dakota.

Here’s the map route, heading southeast:

Route

An interactive map:

Leaving our site, in a cloud of dust from the gravel:

Leaving our site

Leaving the campground:

Leaving the campground

Heading east on I-90:

I-90

Rapid City exit:

Rapid City exit

A fuel stop at Flying J; we don’t get a discount there, and have to go in to pay, but it was more convenient to our route:

Fuel stop

Almost 82 gallons of diesel, a bit over half a tank:

81 gallons of diesel

We parked our coach, with the generator running so the ACs would keep it cool, and went in to have lunch:

Parked

At the Country Market restaurant in the Flying J:

Restaurant

Menu:

Breakfast for lunch; a little underdone:, but tasty enough:

Breakfast for lunch

We had a choice between continuing on I-90, or going on SD-44; we opted for the highway, since we generally prefer them to freeways:

SD-44

A sea of sad sunflowers, done blooming and going to seed:

Sad sunflowers

Entering Badlands National Park:

Entering Badlands National Park

Badland National Park

Roadworks; driving on gravel isn’t particularly enjoyable in our coach, so we kinda regretted our choice to come this way (we knew that there was roadworks, but didn’t expect a lack of paving):

Roadworks