Hanging out in the Black Hills

Rapid City and the Black Hills are a tourist's delight. From railroad museums to reptile gardens to dinosaur exhibits to caves to actual wildlife (if you're lucky enough to happen upon them) to just beautiful scenery-- this area has it all. We put down our jacks in the town of Black Hawk, a few miles northwest of Rapid City and parked for five days.

The lonely bison bull

Since we'd been in the area twice within the past few years, we tried to find some things to see and do that we missed the last two times. So on Saturday, we drove down to Custer State Park at the south end of the Black Hills, paid the entrance fee, and drove the "Wildlife Loop"-- about twenty miles or so of land that promised wandering bison, deer, pronghorns, and possibly even mountain lions. Promised...not delivered. Granted, it was the hottest day of the entire year the day we chose to make the drive, and a certain late sleeper dragged her feet getting out the door so that we didn't arrive in the park until noonish. But still, the disappointment was heavy. We saw one bison bull some way off the road, and a herd of them in the indistinguishable distance. But, nothing crossed our path that day.

Downtown Custer

Our next stop was the town of Custer, where we stopped for lunch, and then we headed west to Jewel Cave National Monument. We arrive there about 2:30 and were informed, to our dismay, that all the tours were booked up to the end of the day. We had planned to visit Wind Cave National Park on the same day, but by that time, it was too late to get in there either. On the bright side, the scenery was beautiful, and we did see some comical prairie dogs along the way. One of them even waved at us as we drove by.

It was obvious we were going to need a game plan if we were going to manage anything besides driving around in the car sucking down gas. So we perused the tourist books after we got home and picked out just a couple things we really wanted do in the remaining few days.

Sunday morning, we got up early...well, I got up early. Mark always gets up early, and we decided to drive the wildlife loop one more time and then head south to the Wind Cave Monument, since it was closer. The wildlife were still mostly in hiding. We spotted a couple lone bison near the road, but the herds were well off in the distance. The highlight of our drive was a group of burrows that had mozied onto the road where they were rewarded with apples from passing tourists. I did not think to bring along apples on account of the many signs posted around the park telling people not to feed the animals.

Tour guide holds a ribbon over the wind opening
showing the air movement...light breeze today.

The Wind Cave tour was interesting. The caves were not huge and spectacular, but they had some features not found in any other caves around the world. The cave got its name on account of an opening at the surface from which air flows in and out as the barometric pressure changes, creating a wind that sometimes reaches as high as 70 mph. We were a little intimidated when we read the descriptions of each of the tours - duration, number of stairs, tight spaces, etc. Worried that we might find the "Fairgrounds Tour" stair climbing too taxing, we chose the "Natural Entrance Tour," which also had a lot of stairs, but they were all going down, with an elevator ride back to the surface afterward. It was about a half mile of walking and we did just fine.

"Boxwork" formation on cave ceiling unique to Wind Cave

Wind Cave offers a variety of tours, including one for very physically fit "cavers" (a tour of about four hours that requires a lot of crawling), and one where candle light is the only illumination - mimicking the conditions of the original explorers. I don't see myself ever going on either one of those, but there are at least two others we can check out the next time we come, for an entirely new experience.

Monday, we drove into Hill City, in the heart of the Black Hills. There we visited a couple of South Dakota's several wineries, and ate dinner at the Alpine Inn, a restaurant that was recommended to us by Mark's brother, Bruce. If you're ever in the area, this is a must-do. They serve one thing for dinner (unless you count German dumplings as food, then there are two things) -- filet minon! You can get a complete dinner with a glass of house wine for less than $20. Incredible! And delicious.

Mark and I both love this part of the country. No doubt we'll be back, probably every year, since it's conveniently located between two places we regularly visit: Minneapolis and Spokane. There's so much to see and do here, we're not likely to get tired of it for a long time to come.

Our neighbors still celebrating four days later

Bison on our second drive

"Wild" burrows having an apple brunch

One of the larger cave rooms

These painted bison statues are all over the place

Our parking spot in Black Hawk

On the patio, waiting to be called to dinner at Alpine Inn

 Founders Fathers Exhibit

Lifesize replica of the "Founding Fathers" painting

About State Parks and South Dakota

80 degrees, but we built a fire anyway

Monday we waved goodbye to Minnesota. We're headed west again on our way to Spokane. This time, however, we're not racing winter to get there. And, we're not plagued (knock on that proverbial wood) with RV problems...not serious ones anyway. Who, after all, doesn't have at least some RV problems if they have an RV?

Our first stop was Sioux Falls-- Brandon, actually, which is a couple miles east of Sioux Falls. We stayed at another state park. One thing we discovered with these state park campgrounds is that hidden fee called a park permit. Our site fee at Rice Lake (a Minnesota state park) was $40 a night after factoring in the $7 a day park permit. South Dakota charges a mere $6 a day, and the site fee was considerably less, but we still ended up paying about $30 a night after taxes. I relate this not only to engender sympathy, but also to warn anyone who might be considering camping at a state park to be sure to inquire about the additional permit fees when you're checking on price. (Any guests that visit you will have to pay the day-use fee before entering the park as well.) I don't know why they don't build this fee into the camp site charge since it's pretty much impossible to camp without first paying the permit fee. That would make sense. But we are dealing with the government, here, so we shouldn't let our expectations run rampant. Considering that neither park had water or sewer, the price, in my opinion, was excessive. Live and learn.

Bike ride around Big Sioux River campground

Last time we went through Sioux Falls we visited the beautiful waterfall park, something we highly recommend you do if you're passing through. It's one of the prettiest sights anywhere. We didn't go back this time because we weren't staying long and the weather was against us. We did take our bikes out for a short ride while we were camped here and got some exercise, something we don't do nearly enough of.

Our next stop will be the Rapid City area, where we'll be camped for five days. In a regular park. With full hookups. I can do laundry again. Yay! South Dakota, being such a wide state, the distance between Souix Falls and Rapid City was just too far to make it one day, so our plan was to stop at a rest area overnight about half way... that is, until we discovered that South Dakota doesn't allow overnight camping at any of their interstate highway rest areas. (I wonder what the truckers do.)

We thought about stopping at a truck stop, but then it occurred to us that it wouldn't be right to take up a truck spot from a tired truck driver in practically the only truck stop between Sioux Falls and Rapid City, so we drove on by and pulled out our trusty phone app called "Allstays" to check out our options. No Walmarts on that stretch of road. There was one BLM free public camping area south of Wall, SD, but it was temporarily closed. Apparently people were failing to close the gate behind them and were letting the cows out.

So we did what any tired traveler would do--we stopped at Wall Drug, the famous watering hole half way between Sioux Falls and Rapid City, where you can get free water, a cup of coffee for a nickle, and "homemade" pie. (At least that's what they called it.) The pie was okay, but it certainly wasn't homemade. Anyway, it was supper time, we were starving and looking at another hour or more before we could eat a meal, and so we pretended it was homemade and gobbled it down.

Eating pie at Wall Drug cafe

Back in the coach, I pulled out my phone app again, still searching for a place to spend the night, and noticed an icon on the map labeled "OP" -- overnight parking. It was a little "Express" campground with only eight parking spots, but they were all pull-through with full hookups... and it was just a few miles down the road. It was almost too much to hope that we'd find an available spot at almost six o'clock in the evening, but we decided to try for it anyway. If it was full, it was only another hour to Rapid City. To our surprise, there were five empty spots. The site fee was a very affordable $10, a good deal less than what we would have spent at the "free" Walmart parking lot.

So here we are, comfortably and cheaply enjoying the evening with our slides out and both air conditioners running. It's 10:30 as I write this, and still 80 degrees outside. This week will be in the 90s, but at least the humidity promises to be lower than we've been experiencing so far. That's something.

Here are a few other pictures from our recent few days...

Arriving at Rice Lake Campground near Owatanna, MN

Rice Lake State Park camp site

Big Sioux River, over flood stage, blocking path

Rest area on the Lewis & Clark Trail; statue of Sacajawea

Wall Drug indoor mall