With truck troubles behind us, we left Norfolk, Nebraska, and headed to the Badlands KOA on June 29, 2024. We arrived just before their office closed, checked in, and received a brief orientation. This was our first KOA experience. We have since learned that there are several levels of KOA; this one was quite nice.
While our site had full hookups, the water and dump hookups were quite far from our trailer. Our hose barely reached the water spigot, and our dump hose had no hope. However, the KOA store sold longer dump hoses, and ours was getting pretty old, so I upgraded. I was surprised that the little on-premise store was reasonable (only $10 more than Amazon), and I bought the longer hose in a kit containing everything we needed.
We stayed for a couple of nights and enjoyed the Badlands. We drove through the entire park, hiked several trails, and were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the place. It wasn’t bad at all. 🙂 We enjoyed the contrast between the rock formations and the green grasslands. We also enjoyed seeing the scarce wildlife. On one of our hikes, we saw mountain goats; on our drives, we occasionally saw buffalo.
On one of our hikes, we walked to the end of a dead-end canyon. At the end, there were cracks through the canyon wall. You could see a long way down on the other side through these cracks and feel the wind rushing through them. The winds were strong enough to remove hats and hold our bodies from falling over at fairly steep angles. It was fun walking around the terrain and experiencing the wind. It would be a difficult place to live and prosper.
After our two-night stay and a full day in the park, we left for Comanche Park Campground, located not too far from the Badlands and just west of Custer, South Dakota.
| Nights | Total Nights | Miles | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 258 | 309 | 24397 |
