We have wanted to camp at The Wall since the day we started RV life a year and a half ago. It is one of those spots you see in other people's videos and file away as a someday. This was the day we finally went for it, and it turned into the longest travel day we have ever done: almost 600 miles from Des Moines, Iowa to the edge of the Badlands, with no reservation and no guarantee there would be a spot left when we got there.
Our whole plan came down to one thing. Get there before dark, and find somewhere to park.
The earliest we have ever pulled out
We started rolling at 8:30 in the morning, which for us is genuinely a record. We are not early risers, and a normal travel day for us starts closer to lunch. But the math did not leave us a choice. Nine hours of driving, plus fuel, plus food, plus whatever goes wrong, and the sun sets whether you are ready or not. Arriving at a free dispersed area after dark, with a 40 foot fifth wheel and no idea what the ground looks like, is how you end up parked somewhere you regret.
So we set an alarm, and we were on the road before 9. Fabiola called it history being made. She was not wrong.
A truck driver tried to warn us
Somewhere in the first few hours a semi came up alongside us, revved, and started gesturing out the window. We could not work out what he meant. He passed us fast, we checked the mirrors, nothing looked wrong, so we kept driving.
He was trying to tell us that one of our storage doors had come open.
We found out at the South Dakota welcome center, when Nathan walked around the rig and saw it. That compartment holds our paperwork, the outdoor carpet, and the mouse deterrents we keep in there. It had been swinging on the interstate at 65 miles an hour, and somehow nothing came out. Nothing blew away, nothing fell into traffic, nothing hit another vehicle. We got lucky twice, because the day before, Fabiola had been reorganizing that exact compartment and said out loud that if that door ever opened, all the documents would go with it.
We locked it, double checked it, and got back on the road.
Finding the reason at a rest area
An hour later Nathan caught it in the mirror again. Same door, open again, and this time we knew for certain it had been locked.
There was a rest area a mile ahead so we pulled in, which was not part of the plan on a day with no slack in it. Standing there in the heat, we finally worked out what was happening. The key fob for the RV lives in Nathan's pocket, and it is sensitive enough that ordinary movement in a truck seat can press the unlock button. Sitting down, shifting around, leaning against the door, any of it. The fob was quietly unlocking the compartment while we drove.
Nathan got a screwdriver and pulled the batteries out of the fob right there in the parking lot. We do not use it anyway. The door stayed shut for the rest of the trip.
If your RV has a keyless entry fob and you have ever found a bay open when you were sure you locked it, check that first before you start blaming the latch.
104 degrees, and a welcome center worth the stop
It was brutally hot. The truck was reading 100 when we stopped for lunch and 104 by mid afternoon, with a heat advisory and thunderstorms building off to the side of us. Nathan does not do well in that kind of heat, and stepping out of an air conditioned truck into it felt like walking into a wall.
We ate lunch in the RV with the air conditioning already running, because we start it remotely before we stop. Chicken, brown rice, Brussels sprouts, and a Celsius, eaten in the bedroom watching a show while the neighbors in the lot worked on their trucks. That is one of the quiet advantages of towing your house behind you. Lunch is whatever is in your own fridge, and you eat it sitting on your own bed.
The South Dakota welcome center turned out to be one of the better ones we have stopped at. Shelters built in a tipi shape, signage about the tribes, an overlook where the land drops away and a footbridge crosses the bottom, and a sign warning about poisonous snakes that ended any interest we had in hiking down. The view over the Missouri River was worth the stop on its own.
Filling the water tank at a truck stop
We were planning three days off grid, so we needed the fresh tank full before we got there. We called ahead to a truck stop on the route and they confirmed they had potable water.
This was our first time filling the RV at a gas station, and it was easier than we expected. We pulled into the truck side, ran the hose while the diesel was going, and filled up in the same stop. If you boondock and you are trying to work out where to get water on a travel day, truck stops are worth calling. You are already going there for fuel.
Somewhere around then the Wall Drug billboards started, 150 miles out, the way they do. And we crossed into Mountain time, which we did not notice until the arrival estimate stopped making sense.
The reveal
The last stretch is gravel. There is a cattle guard, and then cows, a lot of cows, standing around like they own the place, which they more or less do.
Then the road opens up and you see it. Spots scattered along the edge, numbered, some already taken by tents and RVs, and beyond them the formation drops away into the distance. Fabiola's first reaction was that she could not think straight enough to pick a spot, which is fair. It is a lot to take in after nine hours of interstate.
Picking a spot when they are all free
This was our third time boondocking somewhere without a reservation, after two spots in Florida, and the trade is always the same. Nothing is guaranteed, but nothing is assigned either, so you get to choose.
The first spot we liked was on a slope, four feet of drop across it by our reading, and we were not putting the rig on that. So we drove the loop to see the rest, dodging potholes big enough to swallow a tire, and came back around to a spot that was level side to side with the view opening up in two directions.
Auto level did the rest, though the front jacks ended up extended further than we like to see. We skipped putting the outdoor carpet down, because rain on this ground would turn it into mud.
Checking the solar before the sun went down
We got there with the batteries fully charged, which meant we could run the air conditioning that night without thinking about it. That is the whole point of the solar setup, and it is the reason a 104 degree day off grid was fine instead of miserable.
Up on the roof there is the panel that came from the factory on the Brinkley, which is close to a double panel on its own, plus the 200 watt panels we added with Mobile Solar Consulting. Six on one side, four on the other, and no room left up there for anything else. Nathan has been thinking about panels that could slide out sideways when we are parked and lock back in when we travel, which would help in winter when the sun is lower and the days are short. That is when the setup falls short of what he wants, especially if it is also cloudy.
The roof fan was filthy, which is now on the list.
Was it worth it?
Nine hours, a tank of diesel, one runaway door, and 104 degrees. We ended the day sitting on the edge of that drop off with a breeze coming through, watching a herd of cows move down the hill together and the sun going down over the formation, eating dinner number one because we had already stopped for dinner on the way.
Fabiola kept saying she could not believe we found this spot. Neither could we.
We still had to set the offices up inside and we had hikes planned for the next few days, but that first evening is the one we came for. Watch the whole drive, the door situation, and the moment the Badlands opened up on YouTube. We also send a short weekly newsletter about where we are and what broke this week, and the signup form is on our newsletter page.