South Dakota 2007 Days 1 and 2
Saturday, June 9th - Ready or not, here we come! At 7:15 a.m. we shoved off for the first leg of our trip. Our plan was drive to Mitchell, SD and then set up camp for the night. According to Mapquest, the drive should have taken about 9 hours. The first four hours of the trip are a piece of cake. It's the same interstate that we take to Minnesota every summer. Where the intestate splits is where the trip becomes new. We're crossing into Minnesota further south than we normally do. Our route has us travelling through southern Minnesota in a straight line to South Dakota. For those of you that have never travelled through southern Minnsota, let me take this opportunity to share with you how exciting it is:
That's right, friends. From LaCrosse, WI where we crossed the border into Minnesota all the way to the Missouri River in South Dakota, this is what the scenery out the window was. I wish I was exaggerating. It is NOTHING but cattle farms as far as the eye can see. No hills, no towns, nuthin'! For over six hours! We ended up needing 10 hours to get to Mitchell, not bad when you consider we needed to stop for gas 3 times and eat twice. We rolled in and set up camp around 5:30 Saturday night. We hit the pool after the camper was up, had sandwiches for dinner, and a few S'mores around the campfire. The people in the sight next to us were from a town about 30 miles south of where we live. They were on their way back from the Black Hills and gave us a few tips about the area. They also told us it would take about 4 hours to get to Rapid City from where we were. Obviously, they didn't know us.
Sunday, June 10th: We get up, breakdown our campsite, and are on the road around 10:00 am. With the time frame our neighbors gave us, we expect to be in Hill City, SD (where our campground is located, about 25 miles south of Rapid City) around 2:30 that afternoon. Woo hoo! We're stoked! We've heard that once you cross the Missouri River, the landscape changes.
Of course, you can't be in Mitchell, SD and NOT see the world famous Corn Palace. Here we are, like dorks, in front of it. We walked in the front door, looked around at what appeared to be a shopping mall, and walked right back out. People are freakin' crazy.
We also find a K-Mart and make a quick stop. We both brought our iPods with us to listen to while the kids watched movies, but Bill had forgotten to bring his car charger. Both of our batteries were nearly drained. Bill is also complaining about his eye - the lid is swollen and it hurts. So I run in. The only car charger they have for iPods is in a 'starter kit' for $40. It has the car charger, an ear-phone splitter, an extra set of ear buds, and little filmy screen protectors. Fabulous! I had no choice. I also find Bill some homeopathic stye medication for his eye.
Finally we are back on the road. Only an hour wasted. For the next couple hours the scenery out the window is the same as above and then... (cue the Heavens parting and the angels singing)...THE MISSOURI RIVER!!!
Woo hoo!!!! The Missouri River! The Missouri River! It's every bit as wide and appealing as the Mississippi River that we crossed over 400 miles ago! And look! What's that I see? HILLS! We have hills! Oh my god, no more flat prairies! Thank you! THANK YOU!! Little did we know, that that was about as exciting as it would get. From the ol' MO River to Rapid City, SD, the rest of the trip looked like this
Nothing but rolling prairies instead of flat ones. Same ol' cattle farms we've been watching for hundreds of miles. Not even The Badlands offered much relief as we were north of the park. A few taller hills offered a glimpse of what we would be seeing if we'd been driving a few miles south of the interstate. The Badlands National Park, though, would have to wait for another day.
Finally, after five and a half hours of driving, we got to Rapid City, SD - our exit for The Black Hills. Our campsite is in Hill City (sounds promising!), a town about 25 miles south of Rapid City. We're getting antsy, now. We were under the false hope that this 2nd leg of the trip would only be 4 hours. We were also under the impression that the entire trip from our house to the campsite was 870 miles. We were wrong on both parts. South of Rapid City, the landscape finally changes for good - we're finally entering the mountains. By now the truck has about 900 miles on it and it is DOGGING it up the mountain roads as it struggles to tow the camper. We figure it is just "tired". The speed limit is only 35 mph on these roads so it must be typical for vehicles to struggle a bit. As we creep up the mountain, we can see through the t
rees some granite peaks. Then, peeking through forest, we begin to catch fleeting looks at Mt Rushmore. All of a sudden, you come around a curve and WHAMMO! There it is! I've been telling everybody the whole time, "We're never going to be able to see it from the road. Why would they make it so you can see it from the road? If you can see it from the road, why would people pay to go in and see it"? I now stand corrected. You can, indeed, see it from the road, in all it's magnificent beauty. Further along the drive, there is a place you can pull off to the side and see Washington's profile. This was by far the highlight of our entire trip - finally seeing Mt Rushmore. By now our energy is renewed and we are stoked. We know our campground is only 5 miles away from the monument. After driving for 6 hours, we finally make it there. It's a nice place, too! They have their own riding stables. The pool is crammed with people (it was 91 degrees that day). The campground is huge. To emphasize this, I will tell you we were camped on site number 654. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY FOUR. That's a lot of campsites!
We back into our site and go to unhitch the camper. When we get to the back of the truck, I notice an extreme "car smell". It's nasty. Bill started to crank the lift and notices that everything is coated in oil. Upon further investigation, we notice that the entire back side of the truck is covered in a thin film of oil and so is the entire front of the camper. What the.....? Bill looks under the truck and oil is dripping from somewhere on the rear axle. We had JUST had the trucked tuned up on Friday and were assured it was good to go for a nice, long road trip. I tell him that all the fluids had been topped off and we decide that maybe the transmission fluid was too full and it was spilling out as we climbed the mountains. After 915 miles we figured we'd let it sit overnight and take it out the next day and see how it did. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt ya know.
It takes about an hour to make camp, and set up the screen room. The kids are itching to get in the pool so once we are finally set up we head on over. We have to actually DRIVE to the pool because it is far enough away from our campsite that hoofing it was too much of a burden. Caty took a picture of our campsite while we were there.
Our site was pretty cool. We were the last site on the campground - the one furthest north. There were no sites behind us or to the left of us. Our view to the rear was an open field (with a few completely psychotic red-winged blackbird that would dive bomb our heads if we got to close, which we often did) and then a pine forest at the base of a hill. To the left was a small road and then a big, open pasture. Much to Caty's delight, the horses from the riding stables would run behind our campsite and to that pasture every evening after riding ended for the day on their way to the barn. They had free range and would often stay to eat while passing through. Alex and Caty walked down there all the time to pet them. The horses were very people friendly and would walk up to them. Here is a picture of the pasture that is at the end of the road in the picture above:
Day two ends with a quick trip for some groceries, a campfire, and plans to visit Bear Country USA and Old MacDonald's Farm in the morning.
That's right, friends. From LaCrosse, WI where we crossed the border into Minnesota all the way to the Missouri River in South Dakota, this is what the scenery out the window was. I wish I was exaggerating. It is NOTHING but cattle farms as far as the eye can see. No hills, no towns, nuthin'! For over six hours! We ended up needing 10 hours to get to Mitchell, not bad when you consider we needed to stop for gas 3 times and eat twice. We rolled in and set up camp around 5:30 Saturday night. We hit the pool after the camper was up, had sandwiches for dinner, and a few S'mores around the campfire. The people in the sight next to us were from a town about 30 miles south of where we live. They were on their way back from the Black Hills and gave us a few tips about the area. They also told us it would take about 4 hours to get to Rapid City from where we were. Obviously, they didn't know us.
Sunday, June 10th: We get up, breakdown our campsite, and are on the road around 10:00 am. With the time frame our neighbors gave us, we expect to be in Hill City, SD (where our campground is located, about 25 miles south of Rapid City) around 2:30 that afternoon. Woo hoo! We're stoked! We've heard that once you cross the Missouri River, the landscape changes.
Of course, you can't be in Mitchell, SD and NOT see the world famous Corn Palace. Here we are, like dorks, in front of it. We walked in the front door, looked around at what appeared to be a shopping mall, and walked right back out. People are freakin' crazy.We also find a K-Mart and make a quick stop. We both brought our iPods with us to listen to while the kids watched movies, but Bill had forgotten to bring his car charger. Both of our batteries were nearly drained. Bill is also complaining about his eye - the lid is swollen and it hurts. So I run in. The only car charger they have for iPods is in a 'starter kit' for $40. It has the car charger, an ear-phone splitter, an extra set of ear buds, and little filmy screen protectors. Fabulous! I had no choice. I also find Bill some homeopathic stye medication for his eye.
Finally we are back on the road. Only an hour wasted. For the next couple hours the scenery out the window is the same as above and then... (cue the Heavens parting and the angels singing)...THE MISSOURI RIVER!!!
Woo hoo!!!! The Missouri River! The Missouri River! It's every bit as wide and appealing as the Mississippi River that we crossed over 400 miles ago! And look! What's that I see? HILLS! We have hills! Oh my god, no more flat prairies! Thank you! THANK YOU!! Little did we know, that that was about as exciting as it would get. From the ol' MO River to Rapid City, SD, the rest of the trip looked like this
Nothing but rolling prairies instead of flat ones. Same ol' cattle farms we've been watching for hundreds of miles. Not even The Badlands offered much relief as we were north of the park. A few taller hills offered a glimpse of what we would be seeing if we'd been driving a few miles south of the interstate. The Badlands National Park, though, would have to wait for another day.
Finally, after five and a half hours of driving, we got to Rapid City, SD - our exit for The Black Hills. Our campsite is in Hill City (sounds promising!), a town about 25 miles south of Rapid City. We're getting antsy, now. We were under the false hope that this 2nd leg of the trip would only be 4 hours. We were also under the impression that the entire trip from our house to the campsite was 870 miles. We were wrong on both parts. South of Rapid City, the landscape finally changes for good - we're finally entering the mountains. By now the truck has about 900 miles on it and it is DOGGING it up the mountain roads as it struggles to tow the camper. We figure it is just "tired". The speed limit is only 35 mph on these roads so it must be typical for vehicles to struggle a bit. As we creep up the mountain, we can see through the t
rees some granite peaks. Then, peeking through forest, we begin to catch fleeting looks at Mt Rushmore. All of a sudden, you come around a curve and WHAMMO! There it is! I've been telling everybody the whole time, "We're never going to be able to see it from the road. Why would they make it so you can see it from the road? If you can see it from the road, why would people pay to go in and see it"? I now stand corrected. You can, indeed, see it from the road, in all it's magnificent beauty. Further along the drive, there is a place you can pull off to the side and see Washington's profile. This was by far the highlight of our entire trip - finally seeing Mt Rushmore. By now our energy is renewed and we are stoked. We know our campground is only 5 miles away from the monument. After driving for 6 hours, we finally make it there. It's a nice place, too! They have their own riding stables. The pool is crammed with people (it was 91 degrees that day). The campground is huge. To emphasize this, I will tell you we were camped on site number 654. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY FOUR. That's a lot of campsites!We back into our site and go to unhitch the camper. When we get to the back of the truck, I notice an extreme "car smell". It's nasty. Bill started to crank the lift and notices that everything is coated in oil. Upon further investigation, we notice that the entire back side of the truck is covered in a thin film of oil and so is the entire front of the camper. What the.....? Bill looks under the truck and oil is dripping from somewhere on the rear axle. We had JUST had the trucked tuned up on Friday and were assured it was good to go for a nice, long road trip. I tell him that all the fluids had been topped off and we decide that maybe the transmission fluid was too full and it was spilling out as we climbed the mountains. After 915 miles we figured we'd let it sit overnight and take it out the next day and see how it did. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt ya know.
It takes about an hour to make camp, and set up the screen room. The kids are itching to get in the pool so once we are finally set up we head on over. We have to actually DRIVE to the pool because it is far enough away from our campsite that hoofing it was too much of a burden. Caty took a picture of our campsite while we were there.
Our site was pretty cool. We were the last site on the campground - the one furthest north. There were no sites behind us or to the left of us. Our view to the rear was an open field (with a few completely psychotic red-winged blackbird that would dive bomb our heads if we got to close, which we often did) and then a pine forest at the base of a hill. To the left was a small road and then a big, open pasture. Much to Caty's delight, the horses from the riding stables would run behind our campsite and to that pasture every evening after riding ended for the day on their way to the barn. They had free range and would often stay to eat while passing through. Alex and Caty walked down there all the time to pet them. The horses were very people friendly and would walk up to them. Here is a picture of the pasture that is at the end of the road in the picture above:
Day two ends with a quick trip for some groceries, a campfire, and plans to visit Bear Country USA and Old MacDonald's Farm in the morning.
posted by Renfield at 1:16 PM
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