I tired a different entrance to the park this year as I have come in the Northeast, and the Pinnacles Entrances which are off of Interstate 90. I cam in off of 377 into the Interior Entrance. Interior is a small town of 94 people just South of the Entrance and if you get a chance go to the Cowboy Corner on Friday and get some chicken fried steak, I hear it is great. I did not try it as I was not there on a Friday but would have gone and had a meal if I was here on a Friday. The Interior Entrance is just South of the Cedar Pass campground and the Cedar Pass Lodge for staying and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center if you are going to explore the park. Being the third overall time in the park I wanted to try some different things but the weather did not really cooperate with me. There were bad storms the first night and the second day during the day. The Badlands area is a prairie and as such as the little critters called prairie dogs and the dogs bring their predator along and that is the black footed ferret. The poor ferret was almost became extinct. There is a program now to bring these cute little guys back from the brink of extinction with some programmed matting and reintroduction into the wild. The matting started with 5 ferrets and now is over 500 of the little fellas. Our fingers are crossed that the ferrets are going to continue to expand in population on their own in the future. The badlands area was like the Serengeti having many animals living off the wild grass lands but many of these animals are now extinct since there were here over 100,000 years ago. One of the animals still alive in the area is the pronghorn and their closest relative DNA wise is a giraffe. Badlands National Park is adjacent to Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The grassland is not operated by the park service but the Bureau of Land Management, they wear cowboy hats not the flat hats of the park service here in South Dakota. The grasslands were once sold to homesteaders by the US Government but when the dust bowl hit the US Government purchased the land back from the homesteaders and made the land Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The area was able to grow grass for grazing of cattle or bison but could not support crops that needed much water. The cattle and bison would be able to eat but drinking was the problem for the cattle and these homesteaders lost almost everything before the government purchased their land at $0.10 on the dollar of their initial investment.
Cedar Park Campground – The park campground is run by a third party and the third party also manages the lodge. The campground has two loops and the one loop has a spur loop. There are two bathrooms with running water, one in each loop but one of the loops has the shower house. The showers are pay showers but for $1.25 you will get six minutes of hot water, you can’t adjust the water temp, from an industrial shower head. I have to say that I did take a couple of showers as they are clean and it is nice to be able to be clean while camping in National Parks. The issue with the campground is the same with virtually any on the plains in South Dakota is that there is zero shade. The campground does offer a picnic table with some shade build over the table however that is virtually the only shade that you will find in the campground. The days I was there there was always a breeze to make sure it did not get too hot but without the breeze and the storms I could see it getting really hot. There are spots with electric but non with sewage. A bathroom in a loop was out of order so the entire campground had to use the one bathroom. There is a group loop as well and they had a bathroom so guess some people could walk to the group bathroom. The stops were very close together and in fact my neighbor who only had a tent and her car wanted me to move my van back so she could get into her spot. Too bad her parking area was on the side of the road like mine. I will also say that the sunsets and sunrise on the second AM were very nice to view.
