Day 7: South Dakota

Today was our longest driving day, at 8+ hours, down the mountains, across Wyoming and into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Today was also Lucia's. birthday. After the Grand Meltdown of yesterday, we were a little worried about how today would go. We reserved a cabin at Custer State Park, but still wanted to get there before dark. Paul and I got up at 5:30 and packed everything back into the car and truck. We hit the road right around 7am. No bear sightings this morning, although I was hoping I might glance over and see one. Western Wyoming was beautiful, coming down the mountains. Some parts reminded me of John Day and the Painted Hills. We were going to do a full pit stop in Casper for lunch and gas, but didn't easily see a good place to stop,  we headed north towards our turn off to South Dakota. As it turns out, our turn off took us straight through oil and coal mining country. We passed through the largest surface coal mining operation in the country. It was fascinating to see, and a little scary too.

We finally, after about 7.5 hours, crossed into South Dakota and began climbing up into the Black Hills. They didn't seem particularly special to me at first, until we got into them, driving Hwy 16 towards Custer and you see the exposed granite up close. We arrived at our cabin at Stockade Lake a little after 4pm. Since Lucia spent her birthday in a carseat (she was ecstatic to watch Little Bear all day and eat snacks), we gave her her birthday present right away. The restored trike and helmet were an instant hit, and after a couple times around the wooden deck of the cabin she got the hang of it. When asked what her favorite part of her trike was, she said," the sparkles" which made Paul's day, as he especially picked out the red with sparkles paint color for her. Thanks to Grammy for the perfectly coordinated ladybug helmet too! The other special birthday surprises were birthday cake in the Dutch oven and new pajamas made my Mommy (with help from Grandma Julia).

Lucia in the car photo

"New" bike!

Our cabin at Custer SP, highly recommend!

Birthday Girl!

It's hard work being 3

We ate cake inside the cabin because the ranger came by to tell us of a severe thunderstorm warning with wind gusts up to 70 mph. So we brought everything inside and hunkered down. We are looking forward to a full day of exploring the Black Hills tomorrow.

Day 2: Montana

We left Moscow a little before 8 AM after breakfast, again provided by our wonderful hosts. We had a long day ahead of us. And we weren't sure how long it would take Paul to drive the truck through the mountains. We decided that it would be best to stick to the interstate even if it was longer distance-wise. We headed north and stopped in Coeur d'Alene for a quick break. I lost Paul pretty quickly through the mountains, but met up for a lunch stop in Missoula. I abhor McDonald's food, but clean bathrooms, free wifi and truck parking is a good marketing strategy.

Another day on the road

From there is was pretty smooth sailing to our turnoff to our campsite, just outside of Butte at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. Lots of campsites to choose from, we picked one close to the bathrooms and the playground. Win-win. Lucia had the playground to herself while Paul set up camp. Not long after we started cooking dinner, it started raining. All the RVers retreated to their vehicles and we were standing out in the rain trying to make our dinner. Luckily it was still pretty warm, despite the rain. We ended up scrambling to throw the stove in the trunk and we ate our dinner in the discomfort of our car. The rain let up enough for us to clean up and get read for bed. We climbed into our tent and listened to it rain most of the night. We were starting to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into.

Setting up camp BEFORE the thunderstorm

Girl in a landscape