Postcards from the Ranch

Enjoying some great vittles, critters and night skies in the South Dakota Badlands

The vista of the White River as seen from the Circle View Guest Ranch in Interior, South Dakota, a working cattle ranch with a guest house, cabins and an 1880 homestead cabin with no electricity or running water.

It’s strange how you can feel nostalgic for something you’ve never experienced—like ranch living! We just spent a few days in very homey lodgings on a working cattle ranch in the South Dakota Badlands surrounded by jaw-dropping scenery and consuming hearty and delicious food made by the folks who grew and raised it. And now, beginning the final week of our monthlong road trip, we’d like nothing better than to find an excuse to return for a longer stay.

Circle View Guest Ranch, located about 5 miles away from Badlands National Park, was a perfect location for the night skies photography workshop that was the original impetus for the trip. Organizers Erik Kuna and Jay Grammond picked the area for that reason.

There isn’t a big city nearby, (Rapid City is 70 miles down the road), so the light pollution that makes the stars so difficult to see in places like Southern California where we live, is limited. In the fact, the nearest town to the ranch is Interior, population 94, which claims to be the oldest burg in the Badlands. There’s a gas station/grocery store, a bar and grill, a church, a school, a campground, a taco truck (open only in summer and serving the most delicious cheese-crusted tacos!), and a lot of Budweiser signs. There’s even an old jail, was padlocked and apparently hadn’t seen inmates for some time.

“Astronaut” landing on “moonscape” in Badlands National Park around 10 p.m. in the dark skies of typical of that area of South Dakota. I took the shot on an iPhone 14 in night mode, with a 30-second exposure.

Fueling our late-night excursions to shoot in the park and at a reconstructed 1880’s town were breakfasts and dinners undoubtedly designed to folks far more active than ourselves—namely the owners and proprietors of the ranch, Philip and Amy Kruse, and their three children, all of whom seemed as involved in the challenging work of ranching and caring for guests as their parents.

Amy serving Eggs Benedict with green onions, bacon and turkey.

Breakfast was a particular hit, the first morning prepared by Philip with the help of the kids and then the next few days by Amy, with family members all pitching in. Clearly there are no idle hands on the farm.

The smells wafting up from the Kruse’s basement kitchen were the first indication that the meal was ready. Shortly thereafter, a bell rang, with the announcement that breakfast (or dinner) was served.

Breakfast: blueberry pancakes, made with ranch-grown wheat; scrambled eggs, fresh fruit and white chocolate and raspberry scones. Also on the menu: Amy’s homemade cherry pistachio granola, so good we purchased two bags to take home as gifts. I doubt they’ll make it to California! (See recipe below!)

Even the food we couldn’t manage to eat didn’t go to waste. The ranch’s sizable population of chickens happily gobbled up the scraps, including the egg shells left over from the fresh eggs the chicks provided for the scrambled eggs and blueberry pancakes.

Kitchen scraps from breakfast, Russell Kruse feeding the chicks mealworms, and the birds eating the scraps.

The ranch surroundings and decor were as fun to photograph as the Badlands and the night skies—especially the friendly animals, including dogs, cats, donkeys, and a beautiful white peacock that enjoyed fanning its tail feathers and shaking them for an extended period of time around sunset. “He wants to find a wife,” Russell, almost 13, the youngest of the children, told us. “But he already has one.”

Two ranch kitties accompanied us on a mile and a half walk, dropping into the shade panting along the way, but never leaving our side, though both seemed a little winded from the uphill climb. Jeff snapped a picture of one cat taking a rest. We wished we could take her home with us.

The ranch, which began as a homestead of 160 acres, has been in Philip’s family for generations. It sits on 2800 acres and borders both Badlands National Park and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota people. One of the largest reservations in the country, it has been the site of historic conflicts between the U.S. government and native peoples, including the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 in which nearly 300 Lakota died.

The youngest of eight, Philip moved back to the ranch after college, worked with his brothers for a while before deciding to fulfill his ambitions to build a guesthouse on the property, which he did—mostly with his own two hands. He met Amy when she worked as an intern at Badlands National Park. The two have been married 20 years. A sign in the entry of the ranch says it all:

We realized after visiting the ranch, the Badlands, and, later, viewing Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt (Theodore), and Lincoln atop Mount Rushmore, followed by a morning at the Crazy Horse Monument, how very much there was to see and learn and how little time we had to spend as we wend our way back to Southern California via Idaho, Utah and Nevada. Obviously we’ll need to plan another road trip!

Early morning view of Badlands National Park. Erik Kuna, our instructor in the night photography workshop, said there numbers of other badlands in the U.S. and around the world. These are dry, highly eroded soils on which little grows. They often have distinctive sculptural shapes and exposed sedimentary layers.

Meanwhile, here are a few more pictures from the ranch and a recipe that Amy shared for that cravable cherry pistachio granola. It turned out to be a great energy booster on the road and a godsend when added to breakfast yogurt.

Cowboy John and Concho posing for pictures, a donkey hoping for a carrot, and Amy at her stove.

And here’s Amy’s granola recipe. She says that if you want it to come out in solid chunks rather than flakes, bake without flipping the mixture. It’s a little saltier than I’m used to eating—and you should be aware that kosher salt, at least the type I use, Diamond Crystal, has about half the sodium of sea salt—but the mix of salty and sweet is really addictive. And then, if you add it to ice cream or yogurt, you’ll be hooked for life. I can’t wait to make a batch once we get home.

Our next stop: we’re headed to the mountain town of Victor, Idaho, in the Tetons.

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See you soon!

Ruth