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.
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Posts featuring the coach.
Travel from Badlands to Hot Springs, South Dakota
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.)
Badlands / White River KOA Holiday
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:
- Check in: 2023-09-03
- Check out: 2023-09-17
- 14 nights
Weather:
- Everything from sunny to thunderstorms
- High temps ranging between 67-99°F, lows around 50-67°F
- Afternoon gusts up to 33 MPH
Noise:
- Occasional road noise, not annoying
- No train noise
- Negligible neighbor noise
Site:
- #20, pull-through, gravel
- Needed to disconnect toad; parked behind coach
- Fairly level
- Gravel driveway about 60 feet long by about 8 feet wide
- Patio and grass on passenger side about 42 feet wide
- Grass between driver side and next site about 20 feet wide
- Some big trees
- Table, chairs, charcoal grill, and weird fire pit on concrete patio
- Clean site
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, conveniently located
- 55 PSI water, conveniently located
- Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Starlink: 78-133 Mbps down, 10-14 Mbps up, 78-138 ms ping
- Campground Wi-Fi: 36-42 Mbps down, 21-32 ms up, 56 ms ping
- AT&T: negligible service
- Verizon: 13-23 Mbps down, 8-11 Mbps up, 35 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 2 Mbps down, 0.06 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
Amenities:
- Pool
- Garbage pickup from site
- Package delivery to office
- Cook shack food
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:
Video: Spearfish to Badlands, South Dakota motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 127 miles from Spearfish, South Dakota to Badlands, South Dakota.
Travel from Spearfish to Badlands, South Dakota
We drove our coach 127 miles, about 2 hours of driving, from Spearfish, South Dakota to Badlands, South Dakota.
Here’s the map route, heading southeast:
An interactive map:
Leaving our site, in a cloud of dust from the gravel:
Leaving the campground:
Heading east on I-90:
Rapid City exit:
A fuel stop at Flying J; we don’t get a discount there, and have to go in to pay, but it was more convenient to our route:
Almost 82 gallons of diesel, a bit over half a tank:
We parked our coach, with the generator running so the ACs would keep it cool, and went in to have lunch:
At the Country Market restaurant in the Flying J:
Menu:
Breakfast for lunch; a little underdone:, but tasty enough:
We had a choice between continuing on I-90, or going on SD-44; we opted for the highway, since we generally prefer them to freeways:
A sea of sad sunflowers, done blooming and going to seed:
Entering Badlands National Park:
Roadworks; driving on gravel isn’t particularly enjoyable in our coach, so we kinda regretted our choice to come this way (we knew that there was roadworks, but didn’t expect a lack of paving):
A prairie dog town (one visible by the fence):
An old cabin and pond:
Interior, SD, population 94:
White River:
Our destination:
Guided to our site:
On his recommendation, we untoaded (unhooked our truck from our coach) before reaching the site, then followed separately:
Parking in our site:
Fixing bathroom vent lid motor
The lift motor housing broke on the vent in our rear bathroom, so I replaced it.
Here’s the vent, with the decorative wooden cover open:
The broken housing:
I ordered a new motor from Amazon (cheaper than from the Tiffin parts store, though availability may be spotty):
Removing the old motor:
Above that, the lift mechanism, which had become detached (causing the breakage):
The motor just plugs in to a couple of connectors:
The new motor and housing in place, after re-mounting the lift mechanism:
All better:
An easy fix, and as a bonus, it’s quieter now when opening and closing the vent.
Spearfish / Black Hills KOA Holiday
We stayed at Spearfish / Black Hills KOA Holiday in Spearfish, South Dakota. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Another new state, our first visit to South Dakota. A nice campground.
Dates:
- Check in: 2023-08-23
- Check out: 2023-09-03
- 11 nights
Weather:
- Partly cloudy
- High temps ranging between 81-91°F, lows around 57-67°F
- Negligible wind most of the time, gusts up to 30 MPH towards the end
Noise:
- Nearby freeway road noise
- No train noise
- Negligible neighbor noise
Site:
- #69, pull-through, gravel
- Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
- A little unlevel
- Gravel driveway about 92 feet long by about 10 feet wide
- Grass between sites about 25 feet wide
- A couple of big trees
- Picnic table and fire pit on grass
- Some trash on the site
Utilities:
- 50 amp power, very conveniently located
- 20 PSI water, very conveniently located
- Loose sewer connection, very conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)
Internet (in usage priority order):
- Campground Wi-Fi: 60-85 Mbps down, 25-30 ms up, 13 ms ping
- AT&T: 30-40 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up, 75 ms ping
- Verizon: 6-10 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up, 70 ms ping
- T-Mobile: 20 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 80 ms ping
- Starlink: not used
Amenities:
- Heated pool
- Garbage pickup from site
- Package delivery to office
- Ice cream social
- Nature path
Our review on Campground Reviews:
Convenient to all the Black Hills has to offer
Friendly, helpful staff. They gave us so much information at check-in that we were more than set for touring the area. We were guided to our site, where they gave us more information about the campground and amenities. They have trash pickup from the site, which is always a nice bonus. Our site had a nice, wide grassy area and trees for shade. I really liked the picket fences to block the view of the hookups; it’s a nice touch. The site was a little unlevel, and there was constant noise from the interstate, but those were only minor annoyances, and we’d stay here again. We camped at Spearfish / Black Hills KOA Holiday in a Motorhome.
Tip for Other Campers: Farmhouse Bistro is nearby and has excellent BLTs, but don’t try walking there on the nature path–there’s no bridge over the creek.
The campground map:
An interactive map:
Our site, #69, and our neighbor, #68, are two of the nicest in the park; the others in this row are also nice and long, but have narrower grass areas (18 feet vs 25 feet). More space between rigs is better:
Utilities:
Adding the South Dakota sticker to our coach:
Entrance:
Office:
Playground:
Dump station:
Swimming pool:
Dog park:
Tent sites:
Cabins:
Other sites:
A path to a nature trail in a corner of the campground:
Our walk was interrupted (several times) by some runners:
We had a tasty lunch at the nearby Farmhouse Bistro:
Tasty BLT and fries:
A nice RV park, other than the road noise (but that wasn’t too bad inside).
Video: Medora, North Dakota to Spearfish, South Dakota motorhome travel timelapse
A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 203 miles from Medora, North Dakota to Spearfish, South Dakota.
Travel from Medora, North Dakota to Spearfish, South Dakota
We drove our coach 203 miles, about 3 hours of driving, from Medora, North Dakota to Spearfish, South Dakota.
Here’s the map route (the red portion), heading south:
An interactive map, with potential stops marked:
I-94:
Bison:
US-85:
Paladin asleep in his safe space next to the passenger chair:
A sunflower field:
US-85:
A cop car decoration in Amidon:
Another sunflower field:
A cowboy riding a missile in Bowman:
Plane decoration:
We stopped at Grazers Burgers & Brews for lunch, since they had a large dirt area, big enough for our 60-foot coach and truck:
Entering South Dakota:
Up and down on US-85:
Roadworks, with a flagger sitting in a car (makes sense with 90° weather):
Paladin:
Belle Fourche:
Arriving at our destination:
Guided to our site:
Fixing black tank flush
The black tank flush on my coach stopped working. Apparently this is a common problem, if the flush nozzles get gummed up with crud or water calcification.
One of the members of my Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook did a post about fixing theirs, which was very helpful. So I embarked on this adventure too.
The hardest thing is getting to it. I needed to remove this panel from the side of the coach:
The right side is easy enough, with a couple of brackets and screws easily accessed with the adjacent basement door open:
But the left side was tricker, with no door there, so I needed to insert a screwdriver between two panels. To protect the paint, I wrapped the screwdriver shaft with painters tape:
Then inserted the screwdriver to reach the four screws:
That done, I was able to remove the panel:
The fresh water fill hose limited how much I could move the panel:
So I disconnected that too:
My little folding work stool was very helpful for this operation:
Let’s have a look around, since I don’t get to see this stuff often. Here’s the black tank; the green circuit board is the See-Level tank sensor, and the yellow rectangle is one of the two sensors for the rear toilet (the other is above that, obscured by wires):
To the left of the black tank is the gray water tank:
Below both waste tanks is the fresh water tank; the pipe in the foreground is the overflow and vent:
Pipes and wires from the bedroom and rear bathroom:
The horizontal-ish pipes are for the central vacuum system:
On the other side of that wall, a vacuum inlet and hatch in the adjacent compartment (we don’t use this vacuum; preferring to use a cordless stick vac):
Anyway, to business. Here’s the culprit, the “No-Fuss” Flush:
I removed it from the black tank; a bit gunky:
Cleaned up somewhat:
I tested it, but it still didn’t work very well, so I drilled out the holes a bit more (on the bottom and sides):
That solved it; the holes sprayed nicely.
To re-mount, I used plumbers putty to seal it:
And re-mounted it (the water is from testing it):
Then just a matter of re-attaching the fresh water fill hose and re-mounting the coach panel.
All better now. Hopefully I won’t have to do that again any time soon, but it wasn’t particularly difficult, other than removing and re-attaching the coach panel.