We continued our drive west along I-90. Our first stop was Badlands National Park. The trails in this park are very well maintained and many of them are handicap accessible. (I love hiking on handicap accessible trails.) Valerie and her family thoroughly enjoyed the scenery as we stopped at a few of the vista points along the Badlands loop road.

Valerie’s dad purchased a National Park Senior Pass for $10 (lifetime). This should allow us to enter most NPS attractions for no additional cost as we make our way across the country.

Our next stop was Mt. Rushmore National Memorial. I thought the carved faces were quite stunning in the evening light and wanted to stay and look at them for a while. However, it was going to get dark soon and we needed to find a campground soon. Beside the giant faces, there isn’t much to see at the monument and I can see how some visitors might be underwhelmed and regret making the long drive to the mountain.

We ended up dry camping at the Travelodge RV in nearby Keystone, SD. The Travelodge hadn’t enabled their hookups yet because of the recent cold, so they let us park in their RV lot for free.