Day 17: Lots of Driving and a Little Disappointment

The boys and I spent a good part of the morning debating the relative merits of spending most of the next couple days driving and then being able to establish camp somewhere for 4-5 days versus driving little bits every day but never staying in the same place on back-to-back days. In the end, Will and I convinced Lucas that it was best to get a big chunk of the drive to Yellowstone out of the way over the few days. After packing up the site and getting propane, we headed for the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota.

We would have been on the road a little earlier, but I had a very nice conversation with a sweet elderly couple from Wisconsin who were out for the first time since Covid. They were excited to be seeing their son and his family for the first time in several months. They, like us, were happy to be back to some semblance of a normal life. In times when the world seems to get crazier and crazier each day, a nice, normal, and friendly conversation with some sensible strangers is a good reminder that most folks in this country are still kind and sensible.

The big disappointment for the day was that after taking an hour plus change detour to see Jurustic Park, we discovered the road it is on doesn’t permit trucks and I didn’t want to chance taking the RV down it. I am certain that Will (and Lucas) would have loved the graveyard of rusty dinosaurs and other creatures Clyde Wynia has created. It is exactly the kind of roadside attraction we love most. In some ways, finding these quirky places and meeting their invariably interesting creators and proprietors is one of our central purposes of the trips.

Despite the detour, we were able to put a lot of miles between Jellystone and us. We rolled into South Dakota around midnight and camped for the night at the South Dakota Welcome Center.