We made it to the Badlands in one day- Ok, let me set this straight. After leaving Indy and driving a few hours we spent a night at a rest area in Iowa. John set the alarm for 3:00am. When the alarm went off I asked, “what time is it?” John told me it was 3:00. I asked why he set the alarm for 3:00 and he told me he couldn’t sleep. Of course he couldn’t sleep–the alarm was going off at 3:00. He was ready to go, so off we went. I don’t care, I am going to sleep in the car anyway.

On our way we made a stop at the statue of Dignity of Earth and Sky. Don’t miss this Welcome/Rest Area on I-90 between exits 263 and 265.

This beautiful sculpture was designed by Dale Lamphere to honor the cultures of the Lakota and Dakota people. She stands 50′ tall and is wrapped in a star quilt. How fitting that one of our first stops was to see this magnificent sculpture wrapped in a quilt. And once we arrived here we realized we had stopped on the other side of the highway to visit a quilt store the last time we were in the area. There is a lovely walkway that takes you to these beautiful views over the Missouri River. To learn more about Dignity of Earth and Sky click here.

Because of the time changes as we traveled west, we arrived in the Badlands about 5:00 PM. We set up camp and headed into the park.

Bison greeted us at the entrance and we saw some deer playing a little farther out in the fields. We noticed as we got deeper and deeper into the park, the sky was noticeably getting darker and darker. We realized there was a storm on the horizon and it was slowly coming our way. Before we could get back to our camp, it was pouring and then hail was hitting our truck.

It made no sense to go back to camp and grill so we went into town to the Badlands Saloon and Grille.

I had a Raspberry Moscow Mule–Yummy! And Whiskey Steak tips with mashed potatoes!!

The rain had stopped by the time we finished our meal and we headed back to camp.

Rather than try to write everyday, I am covering a few days with one post. The next morning we headed to Wall for their famous donut and nickel coffee. John opted for a caramel pecan bun.

After breakfast we headed back into the park to find some animals. We didn’t have much luck so we headed back to camp and made lunch. After lunch we headed back into the park. We had another storm brewing and some very ominous skies but, it just rained a little. After the rain the animals came out.

After seeing Christy, Leeman and the trips off John, Tony and I headed to Parke County to see some covered bridges. Parke County Indiana boasts the most covered bridges of all counties in the world—and I think they may be right. This county has 31 covered bridges. We had limited time so we headed out and saw 7. Not bad for an afternoon outing.

We stopped at:

The Narrows Covered Bridge, Cox Ford Bridge, Jackson Bridge, Marshall Bridge,West Union, Sim Smith Bridge and Phillips Bridge

I hope to go back one day and see the rest of them. I am pretty sure my son had a great time visiting all these bridges. I noticed he posted some pictures on Instagram and labeled them “Nerd Alert” spent time with the parents. So next time I visit, I’ll let him join us again.

After that we headed back to the house to eat lunch and then head out. We wanted to spend one night in The Badlands—One of our favorite boondocking spots and since it was 1000 miles away we thought we would get a few miles in before settling down for the night.

There is gold mining in Indiana! Seriously. We got our gold mining permit and set out with Tony to try our luck. On the way we were stopped only 1/2 mile from our exit for 45 minutes due to a car fire. We saw smoke but, by the time we finally passed the location there was nothing to see.

I can’t tell you where we went but it took a while to get there. Especially after sitting on the interstate for almost an hour.

We found some gold. We found about 5 specks which is really really a small amount but made it worth it. Tomorrow we plan to go to Parke County in Indian. It claims to have the most covered bridges of any county. And they are probably right. There are 26 covered bridges in Parke County. We’ll let you know.