Wednesday, July 7, 2021 - We drove for about five hours today from Mitchell, South Dakota due west on I-90 to our campground for the next two nights located eight miles south of Wall, South Dakota on SR-240. We stayed on public land at a camping site called Nomad's View and that is pretty true. There is no fee and we access the bluff on a fairly nice dirt road. We set up camp on the bluff about ten feet back from the edge of the cliff that dropped off at a fairly substation rate (I estimate 45 to 60 degrees) for about 200 feet. The view is awesome. The wind was blowing directly from the east, so as we were sitting on our deck, we were getting the wind right into our faces. The wing blue at about 20 knots throughout the first day there. It was also hitting the bluff and being forced up as well as into us. Luckily, the wind was blowing the RV away from the cliff. Thunderstorms could easily reverse that direction and make things a little dicey. Luckily, the forecasts were that we would not have any major thunderstorms. Unluckily, the forecasts were wrong and we had a pretty strong storm on the first night there.

The daytime weather was pretty good. After setting up the RV, we drove to the national park. The park is beautiful and not too large. It is about 25 miles from one end to the other of the park. We stopped at all of the lookouts and took photos and videos. We got as far at the eastern entrance to the park where we visited the gift shop, but the Visitor Center was closed. We did get some maps of the trails in the park and decided that we would hike the Saddle Pass and Medicine Root trails in the morning when it would be cooler. We obtained lots of good photos and videos of the park, so be sure to check out the gallery and video portion of the blog.

We returned to the RV and enjoyed some downtime on the deck with the warm wind in our faces. It was a very nice temperature for the ambient air and comfortable. Later in the evening, a storm grew to the west of us which meant that it would be heading or way. It did. At around 11:00 at night, the winds picked up more and there was considerable lightning in the area that was primarily moving from cloud to cloud rather than cloud to ground. It was rocking the trailer pretty well, so we decided to right it out in the truck. It was beginning to rain. We moved to the truck as many tent campers bailed out and headed into town. We watched the storm blow over us. These midwest thunderstorms move pretty fast, so after about 45 minutes, we decided to move back into the rig. We just wanted to be safe if there were any small tornadoes or high wind conditions that tend to raise havoc with an RV; especially close to the edge of the abyss. About 2:00 in the morning, the winds died away completely and it was very quiet for the rest of the night.

Thursday, July 8, 2021 - We got up early and had breakfast before heading out to hike in the Badlands National Park. As we were driving to the place in the park where we would begin our hike, we came across about a dozen cars parked along the road. That usually means that there is some animal to see. There was a herd of mountain goats right along the road and they were pretty oblivious to all of the spectators looking at them and taking photos. Pretty cool animals. There were about twenty-five of them all together and some were closed enough to touch. We watched for about ten minutes and then continued on to our hike.

The hike began with a one-quarter mile hike up Saddle Pass Trail. This trail is listed as difficult and it is steep and on hard-packed ground like decomposed granite. We had pretty good traction, but we had to be careful as you are on the edge of losing traction at times. It was also steep so we were "sucking air" by the time we arrived at the top of this part of the climb. The views from up there were pretty spectacular, so be sure to see the photo gallery pictures on this climb. We then had a 4.5 mile flat, looping hike on the Medicine Root and Castle Loop trails. It was a pretty hot day, but we had enough water for the trip. Very pretty with rugged terrain and flat prairie with grasslands. After the hike, we drove to the Visitor Center and had a picnic lunch. We then drove back to the RV. We were leaving the next morning for Rapid City and thought that we would like to stop in the town of Wall for breakfast, so we drove into Wall to look for a restaurant where we could easily park the RV. Turns out that the best best was at Wall Drug and we were not overly enamored with their restaurant. It is quite a tourist trap. We then decided to eat before we left and then drive all the way to Rapid City; about two hours away. After a stop at the local Dairy Queen, we headed back to our rig on the bluff at Nomad's View.

Friday, July 9, 2021 - After a leisurely wakeup, we packed up the RV and headed for Rapid City. We planned a short stop at Americas Mailbox as we passed through Box Elder to get our mail before moving on the Three Flags RV Park in Night Hawk, South Dakota.