In the Black Hills of South Dakota, discover stunning vistas, patriotic sights and a wild national park that will stir your family’s sense of adventure.
By Patrick Martin

Traversing the Black Hills of South Dakota is a Forrest Gump type of experience. First-timers never know what they are going to get, just like a box full of chocolates.

The Crazy Horse Memorial under construction with a model of what it will look like when it's completed in the foreground. Linda M. Uphoff photo © Crazy Horse Memorial In title: Badlands National Park features more than 244,000 acres of striking canyons, geologic formations and arid plains.

There are parts bleak enough to make a lunar landscape look like a tropical garden. Then there are rivers, forests, valleys, magnificent gorges, wildlife, national parks, world-famous monuments and a drug store where you can get everything from a cherry phosphate to a jackalope ride.

Our fearsome fivesome was delighted to become northern plains drifters for a sizzling summer week and encounter a variety of attractions that spanned the breathtaking, the bizarre and the heart-swelling patriotic.

Taking it to the Wall

For most Midwesterners, the approach to the Black Hills will be from the east on Interstate 90 across South Dakota. We made the trip with three children, all in double-digit age brackets. Remembering earlier vacations with teeny ones, the jaunt across South Dakota could turn into a long one without 21st-century electronics to keep kids entertained. They can only abide so much sagebrush.

I found the scenery gorgeous for the first 200 to 300 miles, but it’s stretching it to say the average person would revel in it for six to eight hours, which is how long it takes to traverse the state on I-90. Plan your gas and bathroom stops carefully.

Eventually, travelers will get to the west side of South Dakota, which is where the fun begins.

Wall, about 70 miles from the Black Hills, was as poor as any prairie town in 1931, wracked by the double whammy of drought and the Depression, which is when Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought Wall Drug, much to the dismay of their relatives. For five years, the young pharmacist and his wife struggled to make the business succeed.

It all changed the day Dorothy decided to put up Burma Shave-style signs on a nearby highway advertising free ice water at Wall Drug. That started the crowds coming, and they haven’t stopped for more than 70 years.

Today, Wall Drug is the centerpiece of the town. It is a sprawling, 76,000-square-foot drug store/entertainment center/artists’ gallery/T-Rex corral. Yes, there is an animated Tyrannosaurus Rex which goes into its roaring routine at intervals. (This may not be suitable for small children standing within 25 feet when Rex launches his act.)

There are fossils, gemstones, art, toys, a shooting gallery, Native American items, a knife store, a hat store, and a 520-seat restaurant. Free ice water still is offered to travelers.

Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park is a place that looks forsaken but is beautiful, enticing and potentially dangerous.

The park, designated in 1978 after 39 years of being a national monument, is 244,300 acres of wind-cut canyons, fantastic geologic shapes and a moonscape of arid, endless plains. Once a salt sea, the mineral deposits it left behind were worked over by millions of years of erosion, producing a full palette of purples, blues, reds, yellows and oranges.

The park is the only place I’ve visited that had “Beware of the Rattlesnakes” signs posted. The dry climate suits the snakes, and the rocky ledges and sagebrush provide excellent cover. Step carefully.

That’s good advice even in the non-serpent areas. Many of the scenic overlooks of the drive-through portion of the park have boardwalks and fences, but there are more canyons, cliffs and gorges than the largest fence company could handle.

More adventurous visitors can hike the park, camp or stay in cabins. Getting out on foot away from the Badlands Loop Road gives visitors a view of the wilder aspects of the park. Wildlife ranges from rattlesnakes to buffalo to prairie dogs. With binoculars, we were able to spot six or eight bighorn sheep frolicking on the opposite side of a canyon a good mile away.

The erosive nature of the area has yielded countless fossil finds, including some of the highest quality dinosaur discoveries in North America.

Take exit 131 off I-90, about 30 minutes south of Wall, to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center, which serves as the park headquarters. The center is open year-round. Admission to the park is $15 per vehicle.

Mount Rushmore

Named for the dark hues of their trees, the Black Hills offer a stark contrast to the prairies and rock formations of the Badlands, even though the two regions are scarcely an hour apart by car.

Mount Rushmore National Monument is just outside Keystone, which is about 20 miles southwest of Rapid City. The mountain features the carved faces of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Carved by Gutzon Borglum from 1927 until his death in 1941, the monument was supposed to be full-sized figures of the four presidents. The sculptor’s death and the drying up of federal funds quickly concluded the project when the figures were just head carvings, each about 60 feet high.

Located off state Highway 244, Mount Rushmore Visitor’s Center has information about the monument. For example, Mount Rushmore is believed to be the No. 1 subject for editorial cartoon caricatures.

The movie at the visitor’s center about the making of the monument is not to be missed. Despite working from dizzying heights with crude power tools and dynamite, not one life was lost during the project.

Although everyone has seen photos or movies of the sculpture, the effect is not the same as seeing it from a distance, then approaching it on foot. It is, simply, a wonder. Admission is free to the monument, though there is a $10 parking fee.

Everything else

The Crazy Horse Memorial, a quick 17-mile gallop southwest of Mount Rushmore on U.S. Highway 16/385, was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. Although Ziolkowski died in 1982, the work continues through a foundation, and the memorial now has an 87-foot-high head of Crazy Horse, the Lakota chief. When completed, the sculpture of Crazy Horse, riding a horse with his finger pointing forward, will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high, the largest mountain carving in the world.

According to the foundation, there is no estimate on when the carving might be completed. Funding, weather and future challenges of mountain engineering make such an estimate meaningless. Admission is $10 for adults or $27 per carload.

A more natural wonder is within two hours’ drive from Keystone. Located in northeast Wyoming, Devil’s Tower National Monument, made famous in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” was declared the nation’s first national monument in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Rising like a 1,267-foot headless toadstool, Devil’s Tower is actually the core of a volcano that was exposed after millions of years of erosion. It has a mile and a quarter walking path around the base. Park admission is $10 per car.

Our final stop on the Black Hills tour was neither natural nor has much to do with the region, but it sure was fun to visit.

My family is a sucker for kitsch, and the Reptile Gardens, 8955 S. Highway 16 near Rapid City, looked as kitschy as they come. A recommendation from a fellow traveler cemented the decision.

We simply couldn’t pass up any attraction that claimed to have the largest reptile collection in the world, including the 15-foot-long crocodile, Maniac. The alligator show featured a true Old West wrangler/wrestler, and the snakes were ssssensational.

There also were monkeys, birds and a prairie dog village with a kid-sized tunnel which enabled small visitors to pop up into a protective bubble in the middle of the village.

Snake fancier Earl Brockelsby founded Reptile Gardens in 1937 and ran it for decades. After his death in 1993, a nephew took over the business, which celebrated 70 years of family ownership in 2007. Summer admission is $13.50 for adults, $12 for seniors and $8.50 for children.

The Black Hills region encompasses a wide range of wonders, some man-made, some natural. It is a natural destination for a family of any age range.

Patrick Martin is a contributor from St. Louis.