Welcome to the Badlands, a land full of incredible mountainous terrain, hiking trails, and views with an infinite sky. This is some of the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen. The rocky lands have various colors running through them in line formations. The tall spires of rocks look like sand castles, the kind where you take wet sand and make dripping formations. Badlands National Park is a must do in South Dakota.

This was our first close encounter with bison and it was an adventurous one. Once we came across the large herd, we were able to watch them eat, waller in the dirt, and even fight each other right in front of our truck.

Watch the whole video! About halfway through it, 2 of the bison start fighting each other!

The highlight of Badlands though – the prairie dogs. These cute little creatures chirp and squeal to communicate with each other. They’re little scaredy cats though. They’re fast and they run from everything! Listen to the one little guy in the video below!

There were plenty of other animals to see as well.

On our way to Badlands, we made sure to stop at a crazy little place called Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. This store originally opened in 1931 and business was bad so they started giving out free water to those passing through. They knew Mount Rushmore would be finished soon and had hopes of of that bringing in more traffic to their little store. Well between Mount Rushmore, the free water, and the 5 cent coffee, they succeeded and became an iconic South Dakota road trip destination. The entire place is divided into little miniature shops (almost like a small mall) and that includes their famous cafe and donut shop.

And a little bonus: The T-Rex Feeding that occurs every few minutes at Wall Drug. HA!