Day 6 - Badlands and Goodbyes

Everyone was up early and we finished packing, had breakfast and cleaned the cabin. Our first stop was to see Kay and Bill at Legion Lake campground in Custer State Park and had a brief visit. From there we made our way back to Rapid City and had a short visit with Mom before she left to go to lunch. We headed east on SD44 and stopped at Scenic before making our way towards Badlands National Park on Sage Creek Road. Today was much hotter than all the previous days of our trip, with temps registered well over 100. We saw a lone bull bison near the turn off to the Sage Creek campground road and then more of the herd near the Sage Creek Overlook. No other wildlife showed themselves during our time in the park – probably because of the heat. We stopped a couple of times along the Badlands Loop Road to admire the spectacular vistas and had a late lunch at the Cedar Pass Lodge. After checking out the Ben Reifel Visitor Center we made it back to I-90 and headed east, as it was already 3PM Mountain time, and we still had 4 hours to drive to Sioux Falls. Fortunately, we stopped on the way West to see the main sites, so it was a one stop drive. Stayed near the airport because the flight to Atlanta leaves extremely early.