This year we had planned to take the RV all the way to Medora North Dakota. I place I have been many times, but Vicky has never been. It has recently added the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library and is home to a fantastic amount of wildlife. However, a few things changed along the way. These were all, ultimately, worked out. This turned out to be a fantastic get away, full of great times with great people.
We left St Louis Sept 1st., planning to spend three and a half days arriving in Spearfish South Dakota. Spearfish was going to be our longest stop of about 4 days, as we planned to use it as a base to see friends and explore an area that we have been too many times, and love very much.
Our first stop was the Love's truck stop on Hwy 29, just before Council Bluffs/Omaha Nebraska. We have been following the 330 rule for RVing for a few years now. That is driving only 330 miles per day or if you must drive more, then arriving by 3:30 pm, to allow time for recovery and enjoying the evening.
This is the first time I have used a Love's as an overnight stop. I was dubious about what this site would be like, but it turned out to be great. The sites were big with full hookups and surprisingly very quiet at night. Also at $40, it was very reasonable and convenient for gas.
Not much happening on the drive up Hwy 29 to catch Hwy 90 west in Sioux Falls South Dakota, but the prairie can be a pretty place with the all the fields of sunflowers along the way. Our second night was in Chamberlain South Dakota (actually Oacoma) just across the Missouri River.
The marvel here is the Destiny stature. A depiction of Sacagawea. This is the most outstanding piece of road art in America (IMO)
You can see Vicky in the photo for scale.
The Missouri River, this far North is still a beautiful site, not like the muddy mess it becomes when it passes right by our house in Hermann Missouri
This rest stop/visitors center has a nice museum of the area and the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Our night at the Oasis Campground in Oacoma was great, very quiet, not many RV's as the travel season has died down, now that school has started again. There is a big operation next door called Al's Oasis, a tourist trap for sure, but it has a full grocery store with a large bison as you walk in the door!
We also used the pool in our campground, as it was a very hot day and the water felt great.
The next day we were up relatively early and after making breakfast for Vicky, I always make breakfast every day for Vicky! 🤣
Our first stop would be one of our favorite tourist traps, Wall Drug, in Wall South Dakota. Now if you have not been here, you must. You can tell yourself you are going to the Badlands, which you will as this is at the exit to visit the Badlands National Park, but Wall is a stop you can spend half a day wondering around.
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I always start with a Huckleberry Shake. They also make the best cake donuts! You can choose from chocolate, maple or vanilla. They are also very proud of them now at $33 per dozen!!!! 🤯
Unfortunately, it is also were we encountered South Dakota gas prices.
The people in the KOA, went out of their way to give us a site that we could have for longer and not have to move during our stay. It was a great shady site against the back fence, where we got to see deer stay out of the heat.
Once we were set up, we went to our friends, Brian and Susan, to have some pizza, hang out and get some quality time with their fur babies. It was a great time to see them again and catch up.
The next day we decided to spend the morning going on some site seeing spots. I don't think we have ever driven up Spearfish Canyon, so we started there.
Many waterfalls and cascades along the drive. It is a very windy canyon with beautiful tall canyon walls and Spearfish creek running down the middle. This is the first place that gets the some of the fatalities that happen during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally each year!
We continued up to Lead and Deadwood and made a big loop out of the drive, before returning to Spearfish. Friday's is always the day that Brian and Susan meet friends at Crow Peak Brewery (the OG of breweries in Spearfish). They invited us to meet them there. One of the fabulous things about out KOA is that is it right next door to Crow Peak (walking distance) and also a great BBQ joint and a really good Mexican restaurant.
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We hung out as a whole group and it was a great time. I will be spending far too much time here this week!
It was then back to the RV for a great night sleep
The next day we had asked if Susan and Brian wanted to come with us to do some purely touristy stuff that we have done before, but it had been a few years. We wanted to do the scenic drive around Mt Rushmore and then go to Custer State Park to have lunch at the Lodge. They were very gracious and volunteered to drive us, so we could sightsee along the way.
The view of Mt Rushmore through one of the very narrow tunnels on the Scenic Byway.
Mt Rushmore from Iron Mountain Rd/ Peter Norbeck lookout
View of valley from Iron Mountain Rd (Hwy244/16A)
Brian and Susan
We headed next to Custer State Park
We were fortunate to find a heard of Bison
After taking this first part of the scenic drive we stopped at Custer State Park Lodge for lunch
Just a BEER with lunch (Spearfish Brewing Company)
And a funny but true T-shirt in the gift shop.
A few "hairy" tight squeezes through the rocks
You have to time it right as there are a lot of cars coming in both directions and no way to see who might be already coming through the gap!
After finishing the slow winding road (but beautiful). It was time for a break. We went to Hill City and stopped at Cohort Brewing for some refreshments.
Sunday we rested for most of the morning and recovered from what had been a busy first couple of days in Spearfish. We cleaned up around the RV and got to see some of the wildlife that was in the field right behind us.
Later in the afternoon we took a walk (walk off some of the food and beer). A 7.5 mile City recreation (biking) winds around Spearfish and directly from the KOA RV park is a spur trail that connects to it. It follows Spearfish Creek.
There are some beautiful homes, bridges, and structures along the urban bike path.
We asked if Susan and Brian wanted to join us for a drink and pizza
Monday we spent the morning relaxing. We had brought dinner for tonight to treat Brian and Susan to something special. Yesterday morning we needed to shop for some groceries. Brian had come over on his scooter yesterday morning and we had all gone to pick up some local corn and pasta salad for Susan, who is a vegetarian.
It was a work day for Brian and Susan so we planned on coming over when they finished work and got settled. When we left the RV park we noticed that right behind us the hill was on fire!
The helicopter (if you look at the two photos) are already dropping water directly on the flames
Very quickly the Bombers began to arrive. There were already smaller "spotter" planes that would lead the bombers over their targets.
Two bombers
The biggest DC-10 making a pass. (below).The speed at which they would fly over and then go and "refuel" and be back, was remarkable. There was no wasting any time. I had never been so close to an actual wildfire. We were along about 3 miles away watching the fire grow and the same time they were knocking it down. This was amazing to watch and they did such a great job, in such a short period of time. The whole action was only a few hours.
Helicopter dropping another water load on a hot spot.
Video of the big DC-10 bomber making its final pass.
Dinner was delicious and as night fell the bombers were done, but you can still see the remnants of the fire and some hot spots on the other side of the hill. The ground crews worked all night and by morning it was out. It had consumed about 444 acres total.
Tuesday was a busy day for us. We met our long time friends Saundra and Barry in Spearfish for breakfast at Tally's. there are really two places to eat breakfast in Rapid (IMO) Colonial house is your pancake and egg place (they make fantastic homemade pies!) and Tally's is really the Gold Star of breakfast joints. The food is fantastic and each one has a real culinary flair. I have always gotten the Breakfast Burrito with green chili, salsa and sour cream. YUM. They also noted for their mimosas. It was even better to catch up with Barry and Saundra since I had not seen them since 2022.
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We are going to have dinner with Barry and Saundra house on Thursday night. But we now needed to head directly over to Hill City for lunch with Dick and Carol. They are Brian's parents.
Dick and Carol have been long times friends and we got to know them during the Black Hills Hammock Hang Events that Brian and Susan hosted at Sheridan Lake (you can view all those by searching this blog). Dick and Carol are just great and we love spending time with them. They had decided to end their RV travels and stay permanently in Rapid City. They had let us know, a few months ago, that they were selling their 2023 GMC Sierra 2500HD pickup. While I have loved my 2014 Ford F150, "Gandalf the Gray." It has served me well, with over 275,000 miles, it is getting up there and is starting to have a few issues, one of which, it decided to overheat a couple of times as we were driving across South Dakota last week. It was time for something new and bigger to pull our RV more efficiently. Behold "Gandalf the White" 🤣
We took them to lunch at the Alpine Inn, in Hill City, another great place to eat if you are keeping count, to hash out the details. Not really, as they had already given us a more than fair price (did I mention that the truck only had 4100 miles on it!!!!) We just really wanted to see if it was convenient to get the sale done now, so we could use it to drive home and save the Ford from any further issues. So, along with just great conversation at lunch, they agreed we could pick it up on Thursday at around 2 pm. Great Timing Thank you Dick and Carol.
If that wasn't enough for the day, since we were already in Hill City, we decided to go to Mt Rushmore. This is one of Vicky's favorite places and it is really a special place. We walked the presidential loop to get all the angles and it was a beautiful afternoon to spend at the monument.
Now Wednesday was the official lay low day. I think we have been packing in enough for the week so far, but still managed a walk around Spearfish's little downtown area and some ice cream from the fabulous Leones' Ice Cream Shop. I think there might have been a nap involved today as well!
Thursday we headed over to Dick and Carol's to chat a bit, have some wine and get all the paperwork taken care of. They had sold their 5th wheel RV the same morning, so we were also glad we could help them clear out the truck as well 🩷
Getting over to Barry and Saundra's, Vicky snapped a quick photo of the new ride. I must say quite a bit larger than the Ford
Barry and Saundra's house has the best view from their deck. It is really what I tried to find and emulate when we bought our house in Hermann.
They lost a tall pine tree in a storm earlier in the year and had a local artist come and make an eagle sculpture out of what remained from the fallen tree. it is a fantastic piece of art work for their backyard.
Of course, Saundra prepared a fabulous meal for us on the back deck, with a little bit more beer!
And I must say, a terrible pour on my part. I must have been getting tired.
The next morning was Friday and time to start home. Are first stop will only be in 90 miles ( Wall SD again) this would have been a full day coming from Medora North Dakota, if we hadn't decided to spar the Ford the trip and stay in Spearfish the extra time.
Vicky will drive the Ford back, while I pull the RV with the new GMC. We do have walkie-Talkie's to talk to each other during the trip. 🤣 This will be a good way to test everything without going to far for the day.
Blue Springs Campground. We have been here so many times, I booked the best spot.
We arrived in Wall in just a couple of hours. Everything worked perfectly. We spent the rest of the day goofing around Wall and then an early night for next leg to Sioux Falls.
The night in Sioux Falls was uneventful. The KOA there is nice and we just parked, rested and started to look forward to getting home. Sunday was down to Kansas City (Blue Spring Campground) somewhere along the way the new truck hit 5000 miles.... LOL... such a pleasure to have a truck really built to tow. I have kept it on cruise control the whole trip back, not even really noticing the RV behind me. If we had been using the GMC from the beginning we would have made this trip in just 2 days, not 3.5. It will be great fun getting to places sooner moving forward.
At the RV park in Kansas City, we were only a couple miles from Vicky's niece and her husband and family. We met them for dinner at their favorite pizza place.
Ben, Rebecca, Liliana, and Vicky
Monday morning it was just a decision of going home via Highway 70, which is under massive construction between KC and St Louis, widening the highway from 4 to 6 lanes or take the "back way" of Highway 50, to the south. Hwy 50 is 4 lanes sometimes (lower speed limit) and sometimes 2 lane. It would mean an extra hour of driving, but we could also be stuck in construction traffic on Hwy 70 for at least that if not more. We decided to take 50 and it was just fine. Easier going. A bit windy toward our house, but worked out great.
We took the dark blue line over I-70 in light blue
This turned into more of a familiar trip with a more more relaxed pace (after the truck issues got sorted) than we had planned, but it was actually one of the best and most relaxing vacations we have had. Thanks mostly to the lovely people we know in South Dakota. Thank you all for treating us so well and spending your time with us.
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