South Dakota, Another New State

(Black Hawk, SD) Hi 95 Lo 61 -- We were on the road by 9:45 this morning, earlier than normal. We didn't have to drive far to reach the border of South Dakota, only about five miles from our park.



We were a little sad to leave Nebraska. It's a beautiful state, at least in the northern part. When we first got into South Dakota we were in green, hilly grasslands. There were many cows and horses, but very few buildings that we could see from the road. There were occasional gravel roads going off in the distance with signs pointing the way to ranches 20 miles away. It takes a hardy type of people to live on these isolated ranches so far from groceries and other family needs. Just thinking about how long it would take to get emergency medical service is scary!

We went north on US 83, then took some rather rough state roads for about 60 miles until we got to I-90 for the last 90 miles to Black Hawk, a few miles north of Rapid City. The RV bounced quite a bit more this trip. Be sure to click on the photos to make them larger.

It was so much greener than our trip from Kansas to Nebraska.


Then it started to get hilly...


...with more little ponds and watering holes.


Then as we neared the Badlands, rocky hills starting coming into view.


See the hills in the distance?


Jim said "wow" on the radio when we crested a hill and came upon these gorgeous rocky outcrops. I had my camera ready. I wish these photos would bring out how breathtaking they were.


Going down the hill.






Then after awhile were back into rolling grasslands. I’ve never seen scrubby trees like these.


Of course once we were on I-90 it was nothing but billboards advertising every tourist trap in the Rapid City area. This is a firetruck stuck in the ground.


We arrived at Three Rivers RV Park about 2:00. It’s hot but the breeze is nice. The park is at the end of a 1.3 mile gravel road.

Our site.


The office is up the road from us.


The view behind us. Most of these are tent sites. Those are covered picnic tables at the sites in the distance.


Lots of room around us.


We have great satellite reception. There's free wi-fi here in the park, but it's slow so we'll probably use our Verizon 4G signal for internet.

One interesting thing has happened to us since we've traveled to higher elevations. We have a sleep number bed, which is basically a fancy air mattress. When we got to Nebraska we noticed that our settings had changed. We both like the number around 45, but it was at 70. And that was at around 2,500 elevation. We're headed eventually to Denver, which is over 5,000 feet, so I'm sure we'll have to make adjustments as we go along. I'm glad we don't keep it at 100... it might explode! :)

There’s a lot to do and see in this area, and we only have five days, so we’ll be busy!