Monday, September 8, 2014

Day 84: Wind Cave National Park to Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area SD


Today we passed from the west into the Midwest.

The view by the end of the day was of cornfields, soybeans, and wide expanses of farm land.



The day began with views of the grassy, rolling hills of western South Dakota.  We passed through the pretty town of Hot Springs, where many of the buildings downtown were built in the late 19th century from the local red rock.  We took Route 79 north to connect back to I-90 near Rapid City, riding with the Black Hills off to the west.  Then it was mile after mile of plains, dry and featureless.  We passed the usual numerous highway signs for Wall Drug and rode on past the town of Wall.  Shortly after that, we passed the turn-off for Badlands National Park, but we continued on I-90 so we did not see much of the scenery of that area.  Gradually, the dry range land gave way to farm land.  All in all, we traveled about 380 miles today, which was considerably more than our usual.

We stopped for the night at Lake Vermillion State Recreation Area, a little west of Sioux Fall, South Dakota. The park is about six miles south of the interstate, so it is quiet out here.  The registration process for the park was frustratingly slow, done on the telephone mounted at the entry booth, but once in, we found the park to be very nice, clean and fairly new.  It has electrical hook-ups, no water, but it is good to be able to turn on lights to read and so forth. The evening sky was full of swallows diving around the edge of the lake.  There are only a few other campers here; there is a full moon rising; Dan says the showers are decent.  Ah, life is good!



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