We visited Wind Cave National Park a few times. Unfortunately the caves themselves were closed because the elevator was out of order, so we weren’t able see them, but the surface was still enjoyable, with bison, hikes, and more.
Map:
Entrance sign:
Bison:
Visitor center:
Cave map:
Bison:
Loop road:
We went for a hike on Rankin Ridge Trail:
Lookout tower:
A bison strolling along next to the road:
One-lane bridge:
We’ll have to visit again to see the caves!
We stayed at Hidden Lake Campground and Resort in Hot Springs, South Dakota. (Campground Reviews listing.)
A campground with a nice mini lake (a large pond, really).
Dates:
Weather:
Noise:
Site:
Utilities:
Internet (in usage priority order):
Amenities:
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Lovely pond, close to Wind Cave NP
This is a nice family-run park in the southern Black Hills and is close to everything you’d want to do there. The town of Hot Springs is cute and has everything you could want; just be sure to heed the detour advice the campground sends you, and don’t try to drive your rig down the main street. There is a bit of a hill to get up to the campground, with a sharp turn at the top. It’s not a big deal, but be careful of oncoming traffic.
We had a pull-through site, which was long enough for our rig and tow vehicle but pretty narrow. The “missing” site between us and the next one on the driver’s side was useful as there is still a power pedestal that we had to hook up to after a town-wide power cut did something to ours. I would’ve liked one of the back-in sites, but they’re too short for a 40′ motorhome. We camped at Hidden Lake Campground and Resort in a Motorhome.
The campground map:
An intereactive map:
Our site:
The power and water were at the rear of the site, rather inconvenient:
There were wild rabbits that liked to hang out around our site:
And some wild turkeys in the campground:
After visiting the Wind Cave National Park, 15 minutes north of the campground, we added its sticker to our coach:
The town had a power cut; it took us a while to notice; we just noticed when it was getting warm, and our ACs weren’t coming on (most other stuff runs fine on batteries):
Unfortunately, our solar system was not working either — but good thing we noticed now, since we’ll be without hookups for 10 days soon, when we attend the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. So I’ll fix it before then (and yes, I’ll have a blog post about that soon):
When the power came back on several hours later, my Power Watchdog reported that the power pedestal had a fault, under voltage on line 2 (only 44 volts):
Fortunately, there was a spare power pedestal next to our site, where there used to be a site, but now has trees (presumably because it was super narrow). So I plugged in to that one:
The office:
They have several signs around the campground with lists of rules; really welcoming and friendly:
The lake:
Craft available for hire (really should be included for guests; I think these remained unused):
Path around lake:
Cabins:
Games:
Landscaping:
Other sites:
A nice enough campground, despite the power issues and somewhat unfriendly signs. We’d stay here again.
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 132 miles from Badlands, South Dakota to Hot Springs, South Dakota. With a fun picture-in-picture of the view from our truck being towed behind our coach.
We drove our coach 132 miles, about 2 hours of driving, from Badlands, South Dakota to Hot Springs, South Dakota.
Here’s the map route, heading west then south:
An interactive map:
As mentioned yesterday, I added a mount for my 360 camera to the truck; it’s a magnetic mount, but I also secured it with three tethers, out of an abundance of caution:
The camera mounted on the truck; I thought it would be fun to record the view from the truck on travel day:
The truck connected to the coach (aka toaded); ready to go:
After leaving the campground, crossing White River:
Badlands:
Cowboy Corner in Interior, South Dakota:
Badlands:
A prairie dog town:
Bison:
Roadworks:
I caught a stowaway wasp:
Leaving Badlands National Park; the Badlands was good:
The roads were not so good (using my max-zoom technique to show the bumps):
Big sunflower field going to seed:
Dinosaur:
Travel center lunch stop:
The camera was still there (I took it inside to secure and charge it during our lunch stop; check out today’s travel video for the fun footage):
Questionable food choices:
Onward:
The Mammoth Site:
The city of Hot Springs has some nice historic architecture:
Our destination:
Our site:
Our coach:
Again, check out the travel video in the next post for a combination of the usual coach dash cam footage plus the 360 cam perspective from the truck. An unusual view!
(And if you haven’t yet subscribed to the Sinclair Trails YouTube channel, please do so. It doesn’t cost anything, but will help me build my channel, which will let me do more with it.)
A series of clips of timelapse video from my 360 camera as we explored Badlands National Park.
I have an Insta360 X3 action camera, that you may have seen footage from in previous posts. When capturing video or a timelapse of a drive, I’ve previously held the invisible selfie stick out the window, which is a bit awkward.
So I thought I’d get a mount to attach it to the roof of the truck.
I opted for a magnetic mount, since our truck is often a bit dirty after being dragged behind our motorhome, or driving on dirt roads, so I thought a suction cup mount may not work well.
To avoid risking losing the camera if the magnets fail, I secured it with three safety tether cords; I initially only used one, but added a couple more when I wanted to use the camera on a travel day, since I would be in the coach and wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on it. (I removed the camera during a lunch stop, both so nobody steals it, and to recharge it for the remainder of the trip.)
Here’s the camera mount and tethers on our dusty truck:
One of the tethers was secured to the side mirror:
And the other two were secured to back seat ceiling grab handles:
Another angle:
The 360 camera on the mount, oriented sideways for reduced wind resistance:
I don’t leave the mount and tethers there all the time, though they’re pretty unobtrusive, and fun for recording scenic drives and coach travel days. I might try variations on this placement in the future.
Stay tuned for a travel day video tomorrow, with a picture-in-picture of the back of the coach from this camera!
Near Badlands National Park is the town of Wall, South Dakota, and a famous roadside tourist attraction called Wall Drug Store, or simply Wall Drug. (Wikipedia.)
Billboards along I-90:
Map:
We had lunch in the cafe:
A special gravy-smothered sandwich:
The “backyard”:
Their first attraction, free ice water:
Cheesetastic.
“World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less, or your next one is free.”
The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site features a visitor center, Delta-01 missile control center, and Delta-09 missile silo of the Minuteman II nuclear missile system.
Visitor Center:
We did a ranger-guided tour of the Delta-01 Launch Control Center (which requires an advance reservation):
A small elevator down:
A big door:
A video of a simulated missile launch:
Delta-09 Missile Silo:
We visited Badlands National Park several times while staying nearby. Badlands was good lands; we enjoyed exploring the park.
Here’s a map; most of the scenic stuff is in the North Unit:
An interactive map:
Relief map in the visitor center:
Exhibits in visitor center:
Pressed penny:
Badlands:
The Stronghold Unit visitor center:
Back to the North Unit:
RVers camping on the top of the wall:
Big horn sheep:
Cows on the road:
We enjoyed the badlands.
We stayed at Badlands / White River KOA Holiday in Interior, South Dakota. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Yet another KOA, quite nice, right outside Badlands National Park.
Dates:
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Noise:
Site:
Utilities:
Internet (in usage priority order):
Amenities:
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Cook Shack and close to Badlands NP
What’s not to love about a park that has food service onsite? I definitely appreciate it, especially when other options are few and far between. We had a deluxe patio site, which was located at the end of a row. The site had a few trees for afternoon shade, which was nice. The site was not huge, however, and we had to park our tow vehicle perpendicular to the coach; I still worried about our bumper getting clipped as the roads are pretty narrow and there are some tight turns. It was pretty quiet, and the proximity to Badlands NP can’t be beat. We camped at Badlands / White River KOA Holiday in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: Stock up on bottled water before arriving. The local water is very alkaline and hard, which made it pretty much undrinkable (unless you like that sort of thing; our three-stage filter and water softener still didn’t improve it). The mosquitos are voracious, so ensure you have repellant if you want to sit outside. Plan ahead and get tickets for the control room tour at Minuteman Missile NHS. You get a pretty personalized tour and a good feel for what it was like to serve there.
The campground map:
We stayed in site #20, which we had site-locked as what looked like the best site when we booked. Once here, and after walking around the campground, I can confirm; it is definitely the best site. There are some very long sites towards the back of the campground, but they are buddy sites (i.e. living areas facing the neighbor), which we hate.
An interactive map:
Our site, on the end of the row:
Using the Starlink on the flagpole:
Our patio:
The patio came with a wacky fire pit thingy, and a charcoal grill, though we didn’t use either, but did use our Blackstone griddle:
The RV park is near Badlands National Park, so we were able to add that sticker to our coach, starting another row (I’ll need a stepstool to add them soon!):
Sunset:
We normally drink water from the dispenser on our fridge. But not here — even the five filters the water passes through weren’t able to make the water here taste good; our test strips indicate that the water has very high pH and alkalinity, which the filters can’t help with:
We did our full suite of test strips; everything else was fine:
Early in our stay the air was rather unhealthy due to wildfire smoke from Canada:
Smoke map (a blue dot near the middle is our location):
We also had lightning and heavy rain nearby (blue location dot off to the right; the weather heading that way):
We got a bunch of packages delivered here; I used my folding cart to collect the heaviest of them:
The office and camp store:
A nice feature of this campground is the cook shack (or “kookhouse”) that was open for breakfast and dinner every day:
Menus:
The next door pavilion for eating and activities:
A tasty breakfast:
A dinner:
There were a lot of flies buzzing around, so I took the dinner back to our site and ate on the patio:
A strange historic artifact; kids, ask your parents:
Swmming pool:
Dog park:
Dog shower, with mini golf in the background:
Path:
Lots of tent sites:
Cabins:
Other sites:
Entrance sign:
