B and I decided that seeing that it was a holiday weekend and neither of us had ever been to the Dakotas we would head on over to the Badlands of South Dakota. B is generally the trip planner but this one was all my idea so the planning was all up to me. Well I’m not so great at planning trips other than where our first destination happens to be. I don’t look for hotels, restaurants or anything to do I just go.

So we started off our trip heading out towards the Badlands, and according to Google maps it should take around 8.5 hours to get there if we decided to take Interstate 90 most of the way across. Well I am not one for taking the major routes anymore. Everything is just flying by at 80 MPH and what are you going to see? Nothing. So we took the non-direct route, the one that takes exactly 3 more hours according to google maps.

So we packed the car with all the essentials and I paired down my photo gear to just one bag. I took with me:
Canon 40D
Sigma 17-35mm
Sigma 24-70mm
Sigma 70-200mm
Canon 5mm
Canon 15mm Fisheye
Lomo LC-A+
Polaroid sx-70
Polaroid 330 Land Camera
Argus Autronic 35
Diana + with 24mm Lens
A bunch of film

Yes for me that’s paired down for camera stuff because it will all fit in one bag give or take.

So off on our drive we went. We finally made it to the Badlands, and our trip also took a detour after the Badlands. We also made a great detour and went to Mount Rushmore, Wall, Deadwood and then after Deadwood we decided that heck we might as well drive to North Dakota too seeing that neither one of us had been there. So off we went. After all was said and done, from 11 am on Friday until 2 pm on Monday we covered more than 1200 miles on our whole trip. Unfortunately for us it was rainy/overcast almost the entire trip, but while it wasn’t the best for shooting photos we still had a great time seeing some great countryside and hanging out with each other.

Below are just some of the photos that I was able to make on our great journey of the Dakotas.