The Scenic Route (Our First Bad Decision of the Day)

 We spent a week at a campsite with views of the Badlands — our first trip out west, and honestly, it exceeded every expectation. Then came checkout day.

Leaving the park, we had two options: the three-hour northern route via the interstate, or the two-hour scenic route heading south. The choice felt obvious. We are, after all, an outdoor adventure family. We chose the scenic route.

This was the first bad decision of the day.

Scenic, South Dakota

We rolled south through the tiny town of Interior, then followed the road west toward a place called Scenic. The name, it turns out, is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Scenic, South Dakota is a ghost town sitting in the geographic center of the Badlands — not the heart of it, more like the forgotten middle. It was named for its views, which, to be fair, are genuinely good. The town itself, however, never caught on. At its peak it boasted a saloon, a dance hall, a bunkhouse, a museum, two stores, and a railroad depot on the Chicago, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Pacific Railway. By 2010, the population had dwindled to 58. Today, the gas station and the "wild west"-themed shops are gone, and the town is owned — for reasons that remain unclear to historians, locals, and us — by the Iglesia ni Cristo church.

We did not stop long.

The Part Where I Made A Series of Confident Mistakes

Past Scenic is the western section of the national park, including the Sheep Mountain Overlook. It's a solid detour down a dirt road — manageable for most vehicles, scenic in the actual sense of the word, and well worth the side trip.

Beyond the overlook is a jeep trail. High clearance vehicles only.

A Dodge Journey is not a high clearance vehicle. I know this now. I did not fully appreciate it then.

I tried the road anyway. The road won.

We retreated with our dignity mostly intact and continued south toward the White River Ranger Station, then turned west onto what I can only describe as the longest, most pothole-riddled dirt road in the continental United States. We drove it for approximately one hour. It felt like three. The Badlands, it turns out, are not finished with you just because you've left the park boundary.

Eventually, the road deposited us into the town of Buffalo Gap — the first municipality I have ever visited with zero paved roads. Zero. The entire town is dirt. I didn't know that was still legal.

Shortly after Buffalo Gap, we hit pavement. I may have teared up.

The Final Stretch

From there it was a short drive toward Wind Cave National Park. We passed through cattle gates, stopped for the obligatory photo at the entrance sign, and immediately encountered a bison traffic jam — something that, we would learn, is simply part of the daily schedule at Wind Cave.

Eventually we made it to the campground. The scenic route had added roughly an hour and a half to our trip, introduced us to a ghost town owned by a Philippine-based church, nearly swallowed our minivan on a jeep trail, and shaken every filling in my teeth loose on a dirt road that goes nowhere fast.

We regret nothing. We regret everything. Both are true.