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!
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.
