This part of our trip has taken us from the Upper Peninsula
in Michigan to Miles City, Montana. When
we left the UP we were headed to see the Mall of America in Minneapolis/St.Paul,
Minnesota. We made the mistake of using
our fingers to estimate the distance to our next campground and our 250 mile
drive that day turned into 384 miles… a 9 hour drive instead of a 5 hour drive! The drive was out on a ribbon-like road in
the middle of nowhere, dotted with tiny little towns where people talked like
Yuppers and sounded just like in the movie “Fargo.” There were even beautiful little wayside
parks along the way that were great for lunch stops. It’s sad that these little parks are disappearing
from our countrysides as people are now preferring to take interstates. We were having such a good time that we didn’t
realize our timing mistake until Jerome started having so much trouble with his
back from sitting too long. It was at
this point that I started sharing the driving…. something that I had dreaded
but found out isn’t too bad after all.
Our next stop was in Adrian, Minnesota, a tiny 1.1 mile
square town in the middle of the plains.
We were not looking forward to this stop but needed a place to stay over
the 4th of July weekend and we were able to grab a cancellation at
the Township Park there. We figured it
would be a noisy, drunken party that we would have to endure but instead turned
into a very special place for us. Here
we met another couple from Ft. Myers that were passing through and we met many
friendly people. Most of the people were
locals that come here every holiday weekend.
There was a free concert by a really good local country artist, we
learned to play disc golf, and enjoyed a “hollow log fire” with our camp neighbors.
We stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South
Dakota. It’s one of those “weird
America” spots that we just had to see, especially since Jean’s father is
considered “the father of sweet corn.”
Just past here, we stopped at the Tailrace Left campground on a
beautiful reservoir in an Indian Reservation near Ft. Thompson, South
Dakota. Here we experienced our first severe prairie
thunderstorm with tornado and large hail warnings. We found out what it feels like to be in a
28 foot trailer on the small peninsula in a reservoir with water on 3 sides,
wind howling at 70 – 80 miles per hour, pelting rains, and flying debris. If that had been on our bucket list of scary
things to experience, we could have crossed it off!
We had planned on staying at the Badlands National Park, Cedar
Pass campground, for 4 nights but were surprised to find out at 11am on a
Thursday morning that it was already full.
We were lucky enough to get one of the last sites, in the group camping/
overflow area (for one night only), which was actually a prime spot and near
the ampitheater. It was hot with few trees, but absolutely
beautiful. While here we went into town
to see another ketchy tourist trap….”Wall Drug”, where we broke our no-red-meat
diet and shared a buffalo burger. Also,
Jean just had to quell her inner child and have her picture taken on the
jackalope statue! Besides the beautiful
scenery, we saw big horn sheep, a coyote, burrowing owls, prairie dogs, and a
bluebird.
The camper next door to us at the Badlands told us about a
great campground in the Black Hills National Forest, only a few hours away. We called to make a reservation but were
told that all campgrounds were full, so we took our chances that someone might
have cancelled and headed that way. When we got there at 10:30 that morning, we
got the last available campsite there as well! We stayed in the Pactola campground on a
reservoir for the next 4 nights. It was
a beautiful campground in the trees, looking out over the lake with cool
breezes blowing through. We decided
that we were actually glad that we ended up here.
While we were here we
spent one of the days driving south through the tunnels on the Needles Highway,
the wildlife loop of Custer State Park, and seeing Mt. Rushmore National Monument. What a fabulous place to visit and one of
our favorite places so far. Here we met
our camp neighbor, Bill, and spent all three evenings enjoying his company
while sitting around our campfire.
We were sad to leave Pactola campground but our next stop at
Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming, even though a totally different
scenery, matched our feelings about Pactola campground. We stayed 3 nights in the Belle Fourche
campground at the base of the tower and had a wonderful view from our living
room window. We went on hikes two of the
days and just enjoyed the scenery the rest of the time. It is a sacred place for the Indians and
there are prayer cloths and tiny prayer bundles hanging from many tree
branches. The settlers mistook the
Indians pronunciation of “Bear Lodge Tower” to be “Bad God Tower” (thus
“Devil’s Tower”) and it is in the process of being changed to what it should
have been called all along.
For the last week we have not had any electricity, water, or
sewer hookups. We have had to haul the
water from the nearby water spigots to fill our water tanks, use our batteries
and solar panels for our LED lights, and our propane tanks for cooking, keeping
our refrigerator/freezer cold, as well as for our heat source. We have not had air-conditioning but luckily,
being from Florida, we are used to the heat and it is a dry heat here, so no
sweating, and the nights get rather cold.
The upside to this is that it is cheap camping… only $6 - $12 a night
with our senior pass. We are now at a
barren little RV campground in Miles City, Montana. Nothing to write home about, but the owners
are really nice and it has full hookups, WIFI, cable TV, and laundry, so we can
“charge up” and “catch up” before
heading further west towards the Pacific Northwest and into more National Forests.
Until later … ‘ we wish you a beautiful day
and a smile on your face! Jerome
& Jean
