Badlands National Park Loop Road Scrapbook Layout

The main attraction at Badlands National Park is to drive the Badlands Loop Road - a 40 mile loop through the park. Along the way there are many scenic overlooks, pullouts, and trailheads to stop at. We were lucky enough to have 2 days in the park and drive the road twice, which allowed us to stop at many of the trailheads and hike a little bit, and also stop at most of the overlooks.

I took tons of photos in the Badlands along the drive, and narrowed it down enough to only make 5 2-page layouts for the drive. We stopped at many of the overlooks and really enjoyed looking at the rock formations and looking for wildlife. At the end of the Loop Road, another dirt road branches off called the Sage Creek Rim Road, and this section of the park is know for it's wildlife spotting. We spent about 2 hours driving that road and saw quite a bit of wildlife.

For these layouts, I tried to keep the color pallet very simple and accent the landscapes. Since it all tends to be shades of grey or tan, there is not a lot to choose from! The thing about the Badlands is that it feels really desolate, especially when your standing out in it or hiking through it. I wanted the layouts to kind of have that same feeling - just simple and uncomplicated.

We loved our 2 days at the Badlands! It is such a unique area, the we really njoyed hiking among the rocks and looking for wildlife.

After the Badlands, we stopped at one other NPS site, the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site that is just down the road from the Badlands. We'll go there next!

Badlands National Park Hiking Scrapbook Layouts

Badlands National Parks isn't necessarily known for it's hiking, but there are some short and easy hikes that will get you out into some areas of the park that you just can't see from the road. 

We hiked (and sometimes just walked) 6 trails in the park, including:

• The Window Trail
• The Door Trail
• Notch Trail
• Cliff Shelf Trail
• Saddle Pass Trail
• The Fossil Trail

All of these, with the exception of maybe Saddle Pass & and the Notch trail, were easy hikes, some of which were along boardwalks.

The two days we were here it was extremely hot and dry. The thermometer in our truck registered at 99 degrees, but that is as high as it goes! So luckily the hikes were short and we kept a lot of water at our vehicle. The only hike in that park that has any trees or vegetation at all is the Cliff Shelf trail, which goes through a Juniper forest and smells amazing!  

I created 11 2-page layouts of our hiking in the Badlands, and I tried to keep each of the trails looking a little bit different from each other in terms of color scheme and accents on the pages.

Here are the full 11 layouts together (click to view larger or view as a slideshow):

We hiked here over the course of 2 days, and made different stops along the Badlands Loop Road to do these different hikes. The last scrapbook pages for the Badlands are the pages from that scenic drive...and they're next! Thanks for taking a look!

Badlands National Park Visitor Center Scrapbook Layout

While staying in Wall, SD, we spent 2 days visiting Badlands National Park. Wall is the closest town with hotels, and made the daily drive back and forth to the Badlands really quite short. The rock formations in the Badlands are so unique and interesting, we started our visit going to the visitor center to learn a little more about them. (After taking our obligatory photos at the park entrance sign!)

They have a really nice visitor center and gift shop, where we first got our park map and Passport stamps, and I also picked up a couple of postcards to use in the scrapbook. Then my son picked up his Junior Ranger booklet so he could begin working on that.

After the visitor center we began driving the Badlands Loop Road scenic drive and stopped at various overlooks and took some short hikes.

I created two 2-page layouts for the Badlands entrance and visitor center. These pages were also made using the We R Memory Keepers Shine collection. With the map, postcards, stamps, and badges there was lots of memorabilia to put on these pages and I had to eliminate a few photos, but I think it ended up with a good balance for photos and memorabilia.

Hiking in the Bandlands was a fun, unique, and HOT experience. Those pages will be up next!

Mitchell Corn Palace Scrapbook Page

The Mitchell Corn Palace is a very popular roadside attraction when driving through South Dakota. Since we stayed our first night in Mitchell, we drove past the Corn Palace the next morning on our way out of town.

There was hardly anyone there when we stopped (early on a Sunday morning), which made for some nice photos with no crowds. Since we really didn't do anything here other than stop by to look at it, I just made 1 layout for this. I tried to use a lot of gold and brick red to highlight the colors of the building, and added an accent photo of the plaque on the building.

National Grasslands Visitor Center Scrapbook Page

While in Wall, South Dakota, we stopped in at the National Grasslands Visitor Center. When driving through South Dakota, you will often see signs that you are driving through a National Grassland. This visitor center is dedicated to the history, habitat, and animals of the grassland. It was a fun stop and a the visitor center was very nicely done.

We really enjoyed the animal exhibits, and one of the reasons we stopped in was because they are one of the only visitor centers in the National Park Service that offers a Junior Ranger badge just for visiting the center. My son got to work on his booklet and earned another badge!

For this layout, I had picked up a postcard while we were there and I really liked the bright colors in it, so decided to use those to build this layout. I only had a few photos, a brochure and copies of our passport stamps, so one layout was all I needed.

If you are ever in Wall, SD, stop in for a short visit. It's on the same road as Wall Drug so you can't miss it!

Wall Drug Scrapbook Page

You really can't say the words "South Dakota" and not think of "Wall Drug." This place is everywhere. Last year when we drove home from Yellowstone we really wanted to stop at Wall Drug but we just didn't have time, so it was a must-see on this years trip. And as luck would have it, we stayed in Wall, SD for 2 nights so we got to go there twice! And we loved it! No...really, we really loved it. It was tacky and overdone and as annoying-tourist-trappy as you can get and we still loved it.

We went in the evening around dinner time, and the biggest crowds of the day were gone and it was fairly quiet in there. It's a big place and each room of shops just leads to another room of shops that connect to each other for the entire block. Then you go out back and there is a big play are for the kids, and then behind that is another whole building of more shops!

We managed to wander around for a couple of hours, eat dinner, and hang out while the kids looked at the animal statues and all of the other weird and funny stuff in there. We went back our second night just to get dinner and spend some more time walking around, and only bought a few small souvenirs.

Many people cringe when you mention Wall Drug, but we really liked it. I think being there when it was less busy definitely helped, fighing large crowds through the place would get tiring pretty quickly.

I created three 2-page layouts for this stop as well. I tried to choose papers that gave it a rustic and old-fashioned feel, and also worked with the colors in the photos - since I wasn't using any green in this book I accented with the gold/yellow in the Wall Drug sign. Some rustic wood papers, an old floral wall-paper type design, and one bold pattern was all it needed.

If you ever head to South Dakota, do stop at Wall Drug! Also in the town of Wall is our next stop - the National Grassland Visitor Center.

Pipestone National Monument Scrapbook Page

Our second stop on our South Dakota trip was Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota. This park was a little bit out of the way, about an hour north of the interstate, but we wanted to stop and visit while we were in the area. It ended up being a pretty neat place.

We arrived at about 3pm and had about 2 hours there before it closed. They also offered the Junior Ranger program, so my son got his book and we started touring the visitor center. We also hiked the Circle Trail, a one mile path through the park that takes you past the pipestone rock formations. There is also a nice waterfall on the hike.

After finishing up the hike and visitor center, my son got his badge and we finished up just before closing time.

I ended up creating 3 2-page layouts for Pipestone, and included the park map and photographs of the National Parks Passport stamps that we got at the park. These pages were also created using the We R Memory Keepers Shine collection, and I used a lot of red paper and accents to highlight the red pipestone we saw there. The final layouts turned out like this (please click the layout to see it larger):

From here we finally headed to the South Dakota border and made it into Mitchell, SD at about 6pm. After visiting 2 national parks, being on the road and traveling for over 12 hours and covering 555 miles, we were happy to get to our hotel and rest.

UP NEXT: Wall Drug!

Effigy Mounds National Monument Scrapbook Page

Hello! I've been hard at work the last few months working on scrapbooking our South Dakota trip from last August, I finished up the album this weekend and am ready to start sharing the layouts! The album has 43 2-page layouts and covers 11 different places we visited in (and on our way to) South Dakota. The first stop on our trip last August was Effigy Mounds National Monument in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, on our way to South Dakota.

We arrived at Effigy Mounds at about 8:30am and spent about 2 hours there looking around the visitor center and taking a hike. It was extremely mosquito-y there and the rangers warned us about not going hiking without any bug spray. Luckily we had bug spray and so we braved the bugs and hiked a short 1 mile trail uphill to the scenic overlook which overlooked the Mississippi River.

In addition to the hike, my son completed his Junior Ranger booklet and added another badge to his collection!

We didn't have time to hike any of the longer trails to see the larger effigy mounds since we were heading to SOuth Dakota that day and had one additinal stop to make after this one. But this was a really pretty park and we were all really glad we stopped there on our way to check it out. 

I created 3 2-page layouts for this park and used the park map, the National Park Passport stamps that we got at the park, as well as photos of several signs that were at the park too add some details to the pages. This pages, along with the rest of the South Dakota layouts, were made using the We Are Memory Keepers Shine collection. Here are the 3 final layouts (please click on them to view them larger):

We left Effigy Mounds and headed toward our second stop that day, Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone, Minnesota!