Wall is a small town on the edge of the Badlands that has become famous for one of the most successful pieces of marketing in American history. In 1931, a pharmacist named Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy bought a drugstore here, in a town of a few hundred people, and struggled to make a living. Then Dorothy had an idea: offer free ice water to the travellers crossing the prairie in the heat. Signs went up along the highway for miles, and the customers came. Today Wall Drug is a sprawling complex of shops, with a giant jackalope, a dinosaur, a cafe and an animated cowboy band, and billboards for it appear on roads all over the world.
It is, of course, a tourist trap, but a good-humoured one, and it has doughnuts, five-cent coffee and a very large collection of Western art and souvenirs. Many riders stop for the experience as much as for supplies. The interstate runs past the town, and the main street has the usual motels, diners and gas stations, so it is a convenient base before the loop road.
The Badlands Loop road begins a few miles south, and leads through the national park, a landscape of eroded buttes, pinnacles and canyons painted in bands of pink, yellow and grey. The Lakota called the area mako sica, meaning bad land, because it was difficult to cross, and the early French trappers said the same thing in their own language. The road runs along the edge of the formations, with long views over the prairie, and the surface is generally good, with easy curves and a few steady climbs. You may see bison, bighorn sheep and prairie dogs along the route.
Fill the tank in Wall, since the loop has few services. Summer is hot, with temperatures often above thirty-five degrees Celsius and violent thunderstorms, hail and wind in the afternoon. Spring and autumn are more pleasant, and the low light at dawn or dusk makes the rock glow. Bring water, sunscreen and a windproof layer, and watch for rattlesnakes if you leave the road. Winter can bring snow and closures, and the whole area is far from any large city, so plan ahead.