Rapid City’s Table for Six is on the move again.

Today’s destination: Wall Drug, with stops along the way in Badlands National Park.

On second thought, that’s a bit bass-ackwards. We’re visiting a National Park fergawdsakes, and making a stop at Wall Drug in beautiful Wall, South Dakota, on the way home. Because, well, you just have to.

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We leave Rapid City and head southeast on South Dakota Highway 44, quickly rolling through Rapid Valley, Green Valley, past the Rapid City Regional Airport, and 73 miles later, we arrive in the tiny town of Interior, population 94.

Along the way, it was super windy, with crosswinds gusting up to 35 miles an hour. The riding was challenging, and not all of us made it to our original destination for the day. No problem … we just invented alternate destinations for part of the group, and said, “we’ll see you back at the barn.”

If a person did steno work here in Interior, what would they be called? Wait for it …

Secretary of the Interior.

We turn northeast on South Dakota Highway 377 and quickly enter Badlands National Park. State Highway 240, which becomes the Badlands National Park Scenic Loop, is on our left.

Why the name “Badlands?” The Lakota people were the first to call the area mako sica, or “land bad.” Extreme temperatures, lack of water, and the exposed rugged terrain led to this name. In the early 1900s, French Canadian fur trappers called it les mauvais terres pour traverse, or “bad lands to travel through.”

It’s not so bad to travel through today on a Harley, so we join the loop, heading northwest through a labyrinth of sand buttes and spires that appear to come from another planet. These striking geologic deposits contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds.

Badlands National Park protects nearly a quarter of a million acres of land, including the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the US.

The Badlands Wall is a 100-mile stretch of tiered cliffs, a huge natural barrier ridging the landscape, sculpted into pinnacles and gullies by the forces of water. National Geographic compares the Wall to an enormous stage set – colorful, dramatic, and not quite real. Water has been carving away at the cliffs for the past half million years or so, and even today, it continues to erode the cliffs an inch or more every year.

Soon, we arrive at the Panorama Point Overlook, one of the better vistas in the park. Pics or it didn’t happen? OK, so we pull over, snap some photos, and continue to the next overlook, at Conata Basin.

Actually, there are tons of overlooks on the Badlands Scenic Loop, few of them with names. From here, the Scenic Loop continues west for a few more miles, but we see signs for Wall Drug, so feeling the magnetic pull, we turn north and five minutes later arrive in Wall, South Dakota.

Wall is named for the nearby steep Badlands, which we now have in our rear-view mirrors. The town is most famous for Wall Drug Store, which opened as a small pharmacy in 1931 and eventually developed into a large roadside tourist attraction.

Anyone who’s ever driven through South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming or other neighboring states, is familiar with the ubiquitous signs and billboards that remind you, “785 Miles to Wall Drug. Free Ice Water.” Most of the billboards are on a 650-mile stretch of Interstate 90 from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. At its peak in the 1960s, Wall Drug had more than 3,000 highway signs!

Wall Drug struggled for years until the owner’s wife thought of advertising – and offering – free ice water to parched travelers heading to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument 60 miles to the west. To this day, tourists like us still drink the free ice water, though it’s no longer the main attraction.

Besides the free ice water, Wall Drug also has a cowboy-themed shopping mall, western art museum, a chapel and an 80-foot apatosaurus – a dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period.

To give you a sense of Americans’ twisted sense of travel priorities, more than two million visitors cruise through Wall Drug each year. Less than one million visit Badlands National Park.

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From Wall Drug, we hop on Interstate 90, and ride the 54 boring miles back to Rapid City.

We’re nearly back where the day began, but first we pass Ellsworth Air Force Base, home of the 28^th Bomb Wing and the California-built B-1B bomber. Ellsworth is one of only two hosts to the B-1B; the other is Dyess AFB in Texas.

Ellsworth was established in 1941 as Rapid City Army Air Base. It was later named in honor of Brigadier General Richard Ellsworth, who was killed when his RB-36 bomber crashed during a 1953 training flight in Newfoundland.

Over the years, Ellsworth has hosted various missile systems (Nike, Titan, Minuteman) and the B-52 Bomber. Today, the base’s population of 8,000 includes military members, family members and civilian employees.

Next to the base is the South Dakota Air and Space Museum (Free!), rated by Trip Advisor as #7 of 66 things to do in Rapid City.

Number one on our list is a relaxing dinner, so what’s left of our roving Table for Six exits the Interstate, begins happy hour, and contemplates tomorrow. Devils Tower, anyone?

No dinner pics tonight, but because you’ve all been so good today while we’ve been on the road, here are a few bonus breakfast photos:

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Day Nine Summary: Going to the Wall, seeing some bad lands, free ice water at – where else? – Wall Drug.

Click here to see today’s complete route from Rapid City to Badlands National Park and back.

We’re on our way to Sturgis!

Vroom, vroom.

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Today in Bucket List History:

Bucket List Goal: “Write and Record a Hit Song”

Goal Achieved: On August 5, 1967 singer-songwriter Bobby Gentry from Chickasaw County, Mississippi, releases her only hit, “Ode to Billie Joe.” The song is a first-person narrative about the day Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. “Ode to Billie Joe” was the No. 3 song for all of 1967, behind only “The Letter” (by the Box Tops) and “To Sir With Love” (by Lulu).

What’s on your bucket list?

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Bonus pic: Scott in semi-shock after visiting the tattoo parlor at Black Hills Harley Davidson in Rapid City? Got Ink?