The road passed through a toll station. There was a seven-dollar entrance fee for “nonmotorized” visitors, and the ranger at the booth reminded me that I could only camp in designated areas. Just a half mile in I stopped to see the first of the remarkable formations.

The native Lakota tribe called the area Makhóšiĉa, which means “bad land.” Early French trappers were a little more descriptive, naming it les mauvaises terres à traverser—the bad lands to cross.

The Badlands’ name is well deserved. The area is a quagmire of slopes and crevices, slick clay and deep sand, all of which encumbered early travelers through the area.

Modern roads carve an easily accessible scenic route through the park, but, by nightfall, I was still a long way from any campground. Despite the ranger’s warning I had no choice but to find a place to camp that wasn’t designated as such. Near a spot called Panorama Point, I slid down a small ravine where I couldn’t be seen from the road.

I ate a can of cold Bush’s Baked Beans, an apple, and the last of my Wall Drug cake doughnuts, which were smashed into crumbs.

I started early the next morning. By eight o’clock, I reached Fossil Trail, where I paused to examine some of the prehistoric findings, including tortoise shells and saber-tooth tiger bones. I stopped at Cedar Pass Lodge for lunch and water, but passed by the visitors center because I was afraid I would not make it out of the park before dark.

Near the end of the loop, I came upon a trading post with a giant woodcarving of a woodchuck out front. I picked up a few things for dinner, then sat on the curb next to the giant wood rodent and ate a buffalo hot dog and a bean and cheese burrito that I had warmed in the store’s microwave.

Then I headed on toward 90, looking for a place to spend the night. On the service road before the freeway was an abandoned building with its sign still intact:

THE CACTUS FLAT CAFÉ

The windows were all broken out, and the front door was open, leaning on an angle from its rusted hinges. I looked inside. The place was full of trash. I cleared an area to sleep in at the back of the building and spent an uneventful night amid the trash and rodents.

The next morning I backtracked a mile to the trading post for breakfast—a sausage biscuit, cheese Danish, and banana—then returned to the service road.

The day’s highlight was encountering a sign that informed me that the movies Thunderhead—a 1945 movie starring Roddy McDowall—and Starship Troopers—a 1997 movie starring no one—were filmed in the area. Wall Drug billboards were now facing away from me on the opposite side of the highway. They grew sparser the farther I walked from Wall.