On the road again!
August 26, 2023
We left home on Saturday afternoon, August 12 and traveled east about 2 hours to Deschutes River State Recreation Area. It is a lovely park on the Deschutes River. The next day, we continued east on I-84 to I-82 to Spokane and spent the first of three nights at Harvest Host sites. Harvest Host is an organization that you can join and camp at farms, vineyards, breweries, and museums for free if you are self contained. Our first site was an alpaca farm called Pleasant Prairie Alpacas.
The farm had 23 alpacas which they breed, sheer and show and we got to feed the alpacas and learned a lot about them.
The next day we passed through Idaho and into Montana. The most exciting part of the day was stopping at the St. Regis travel center and getting a huckleberry milk shake, which was very delicious.
We spent this night at Heart and Soul Alpaca Farm a little east of Butte in the Tobacco Range, the setting was very beautiful. This farm has140 alpacas, 8 dogs, 4 horses and several other pets around the farm.
This farm is primarily into breeding and the host told us his prime stud is worth $100,000. His stud fees are $6,000. We got to hold a 6 day old baby and we are learning an awful lot about alpacas!!!
Continuing east on I-90 our next Harvest Host site was at the Huntley Project Museum north of Billings.This museum is kind of a living history museum of the early 1900’s when a big effort was being made to irrigate this area with water from the Yellowstone River to make it farmable. We saw all the inside and outside exhibits. It was a very nice museum. This was the warmest day of our trip so far - most days it has gotten up to the 90’s but today it topped off at 102 degrees. Besides the heat, there were railroad tracks across the street from where we were parked, with road crossings at each end of the park, so big freight trains went past 5 times during the night! Even railroad-loving Mark was getting tired of the trains!
We left the museum and continued east and stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. We went to the Visitor Center and looked at the exhibits and saw a movie explaining the battle between the native Americans led by Sitting Bull and the U.S. Cavalry led by Lt Colonel George Custer. It was really a clash of cultures. The U.S. lost 263 men and the native people lost 100 men. The Indians won the battle, but in the long run lost their freedom. We took a walk to see the monuments to both sides. It is quite a thought provoking place. 
Native American Memorial 
US Cavalry Memorial
We continued east through a corner of Wyoming and in to South Dakota. We spent the night at Rocky Point State Recreation Area on Belle Fourche Reservoir. It is a pretty lake and quite full for this time of the year. We were told that they have had a lot of rain this summer.
On Thursday, August 17, we drove the short distance to Custer State Park, where we spent 6 nights. We have been here before and the whole area is very beautiful. One of our favorite things to do here is to take the 18 mile Wildlife Loop Road which we took five times and saw herds of bison, elk, pronghorn antelope, deer and prairie dogs. We have also seen bighorn mountain sheep. Sometime the bison and mountain sheep block the roads and cause animal jams!
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| Prairie Dogs |
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| Bison and calf |
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| Pronghorn Antelope |
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| Pronghorn Antelope |
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| Mr. Bison! |
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| Bison Herd |
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| And more Bison |
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| Deer |
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| Mr Big Horn Shhep |
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| One of the wild mules |
Another of our favorite drives in the park is the Needles Highway which leads to beautiful Sylvan Lake. The entire area is dominated by granite spires - thus the name Needles Highway.
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| Sylvan Lake |
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| Narrow spot on hike around lake |
We took a nice walk around the lake. Another day we took a walk on the Fishermans Trail which starts right across the street from our campground. It follows a lovely creek which we had to cross several times on narrow foot bridges.
Mark went kayaking on Stockade Lake, we rode our bikes a few times on the Creekside trail, and went to two evening programs at a nearby campground.
There are also lots of things to do outside of the park itself. We took the Iron Mt Scenic Road to Mt Rushmore. The road has tunnels strategically placed so as you come out, you have a beautiful view of Mt Rushmore and the monument is very impressive.
We took the Presidential trail near the bottom of the mountain to get closer views. We also watched a very informative film at the Visitors Center which explained how the sculpture was created. Another day we took a ride on the 1880 Steam Train from Hill City to Keystone and enjoyed the narrative and scenery along the way.
We followed that with dinner at the Alpine Inn. The Alpine Inn has 3 things on its dinner menu: large filet mignon, smaller filet mignon and a vegetarian dish. The large filet was only $17.95 and that was for a complete dinner! We had wanted to take a cave tour at either Wind Cave National Park or Jewel Cave National Monument, but the tours at Wind Cave were closed for elevator repair and the Jewel Cave tours were full the whole time we were there. It would have been nice to be in a cool cave as the temperatures while we were in the area were in the mid 90’s the whole time we were there except for our day at Mt Rushmore.
We left Custer State Park early on the 23rd. First, we had to deal with a mountain sheep traffic jam on the road and then a bison herd surrounding the RV dump station.
We headed east across South Dakota on I 90. Our first stop was at Wall Drug, a giant souvenir store which is most of the town of Wall. Our next stop was at a rest area near the Missouri River where Lewis and Clark camped. They had a very nice museum about Lewis and Clark and also a beautiful statue of a native American woman that was called “Dignity”.
We spent the night just across the border in Minnesota at Split Rock Creek State Park. We didn’t see much of the park because it was so hot and humid that we turned on the noisy air conditioner (something we don’t like to do because it is so loud inside ) until we went to bed.
We spent most of the day on the 24th driving north and east in Minnesota on Rt 23. We crossed the not so mighty yet Mississippi River in St Cloud and spent the night at Jay Cooke State Park south of Duluth Minnesota. After supper we walked to the visitor Center and down to the Swinging Bridge across the St Louis River. It is quite rocky country and we could see several small waterfalls from the bridge.
The next morning, we went back across the swinging bridge and took a very nice hike on the Silver Creek trail. This is very nice northern woods. We finished the hike and packed up the trailer and left the park.
We went into Duluth to stock up on groceries and gas and headed north on Rt 61 which is known as the North Shore Highway (along Lake Superior) until we got to Gooseberry Falls State Park where we are staying for 4 nights. But more about that next time!
