One of my life goals is to spend time in every state. During this road trip I happily checked off a few new ones, South Dakota being the first one along our journey west.
Our first stop into SD was in Sioux Falls. This was more of a stop-over than a destination but the town was pretty cute. We took a quick look at the falls (hard for these to compare when a few days earlier we were at Niagara Falls) then walked the main street, Phillips Ave, full of cute shops and restaurants. We grabbed pizzas from Fiero Pizza and brought it back to our hotel to eat in bed with a glass of wine, really living it up in Sioux Falls! This pizza was actually quite delicious! A welcomed surprise after a long day of driving. Sorry, no pictures of me chowing down on pizza in bed, maybe next time.
In the morning we grabbed breakfast at Phillips Ave Diner, also quite tasty (I recommend the Farmer’s Scrambler), and coffee at Coffea before jumping back in the car for some more miles.
Our next stop was Badlands, South Dakota, most famously known for the time Bachelor Farmer Chris left two crying girls in the middle of the National Park (I looked around but couldn’t locate that bed in the park). Or perhaps it’s famous for the striking geologic deposits that contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds, but you be the judge. Unfortunately National Parks are not particularly dog friendly so we couldn’t explore off-road, but even views from the roads running through the park were pretty incredible. These pictures don’t do it justice. 
After traveling through the Badlands, our next night was spent in Wall, South Dakota. Let me be very clear with you. If you are driving across SD, keep going. Wall was definitely a low point of our trip. The town centers around Wall Drug, a bizarre giant drug store that is some sort of weird tourist attraction. In fact, billboards advertise Wall Drug 300 miles away. Friends gave us advice to drive beyond Wall and spend the night in Rapid City, an hour further, but for some reason we ignored their advice. Even though we had paid for our room in Wall, we still considered forgoing the money and getting to Rapid City. In the end, we stayed the night and it was fine, we survived, but were quite happy to leave first thing in the morning.
We then made our way to Mount Rushmore. It’s kinda cool and kinda just a strange attraction, but we couldn’t drive by without making a stop. We snapped some pictures and continued on.
Right outside of Mount Rushmore is an awesome park, Custer State Park that offers amazing scenic drives. We did Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road. I highly recommend both of these drives for gorgeous views and twisty turny roads, plus dog-friendly hiking.
South Dakota, you sure showed us some highs and lows. Next up, another new state for me: Montana!
