Tuesday July 18th
We woke up around 5am EST to get our butts out the door of Grandpa’s house and get down to the real honeypopping. We were on the road by 6am.
We started out heading south on the “Thruway”, which is the first part of I-90, still in New York, this part is a toll road. This is a road we have since become very familiar with as we took it all the way to South Dakota. Our goal was to limit our stops as much as possible given that it was set up to be our longest day of driving. So we packed leftover meatloaf for sandwiches to eat at a rest area. We had a bag stocked with snacks to eat along the way, granola bars, goldfish, fruit snacks, trail mix, oatmeal rounds, whatever we felt like.
No surprises, until Ohio. We get into the state and get handed a toll care. It was going to cost us $17 to drive across the states. OHIO you aren’t that special! We suck it up and pay the toll, at least it came as one lump sum all at the end, so only 2 toll plazas total. But one of them did have a cow trailer next to us, which was fun to talk to the cows.
Then we get to Indiana, at this point we are hard into farming country which is nice easy driving. They had very nice rest areas, as did Ohio. Things are looking good, except that Indiana turns into Illinois. Illinois is currently our least favorite states. We had to detour around Chicago in the middle of the day on Tuesday because traffic was miles of that dreaded dark red Google maps uses to tell you how bad the traffic is. Then there are tolls at what feels like every 10 to 15 miles and each time the sign will be like oh $0.75 or $1.50, then we pull up they look at the trailers and it’s like $3.60 or higher. It was crazy! We spent more money on tolls than gas between Ohio and Illinois. It took what felt FOREEEEVVVVEERRRR *Sandlot voices* to get to Wisconsin.
We keep entertained on the drive with reading interesting excerpts out loud, crossword puzzles, books on tape, counting the cows, and trying to find every state license plate.
We do eventually make it to Wisconsin and we have two more hours of driving until we hit our destination at Devil’s Lake State Park. By the time we get there we have spent 14 hours in the car, but gained an hour moving to Central time so arrived around 6:30pm. We take the scenic tour around the park trying to find the campground. It has some awesome cliff walls and giant boulders that were a large part of the reason we choose it, as they were available for climbing. We get to see the lake, which is this beautiful little mountain oasis.
We made dinner, Pork sliders. At least we usually make them as pork sliders, but this time no Hawaiian rolls, just hot dog buns. So you get a marinated pork tenderloin, throw that on the grill. Get a red onion, slice it in half, throw that on the grill. Grab a can of sliced pineapple, if you are feeling frisky, throw the slices on the grill. And have a bottle of Teriyaki sauce ready to go. If the pork was not pre-marinated, definitely use Teriyaki, for 30 minutes or so. Then construct your sandwich: Hawaiian rolls sliced in half, pineapple, red onion, then sliced pork and extra Teriyaki. If you are doing sliders, eat 3!
Then we drank some New Glarus beer when it rained, thankfully after dinner, and I posted the last blog then we went to bed.
Then we work up at 1 am with the second rainstorm of the night, which lasted a good hour with lightning, thunder, downpours, the whole nine. This was the first time that we were glad to not have Mocha with us, because while she hates Thunderstorms, she hates them even more in the camper. Rain stops, and I eventually fall back asleep.
Wednesday July 19th
Rest Day!!!
We woke up lazily then we made breakfast. Our go to breakfast, at home, is fried eggs and a banana. Most of the time while camping this gets an upgrade to fried eggs on toast smothered in syrup, with our without bacon strips torn up between the toast and eggs. It is a good source of protein, fat, and carbs to keep you feeling full for any activity.
We decided since it had rained SO much the night before any morning climbing we had planned was out of the picture as wet rock is slippery rock, and slippery rock is much less fun to try to hang your body on. So we went on a hike. We took the East Bluffs trail which allowed us to see all of the cliff climbing that we were not doing.
It also had some very nice overlooks of the Lake and surrounding area. It was about 8 miles total. Then we headed back and had some leftover pork sliders for lunch.
Then we headed to the lake for some swimming, which is code for sitting in my floatie and enjoying life. After a little floating, I was ready to Kayak. A couple of years ago we had purchased an inflatable Kayak, Sea Eagle brand, which allowed us to bring it more easily in its large bag than having to mount a standard kayak on a roof rack. It is not the easiest to steer, but after much practice we seem to have finally figured out a system that works in order for us to go forwards. This was an exceptionally clear lake as it was formed with essentially rain water and snow melt only and is not fed by any rivers or streams.
After that the rest of the day was just relaxing and hanging out. We bought some sausage and cheese curds, and more Wisconsin beer to feel like we were getting the appropriate vibe of the place.
I recently had a friend from Wisconsin explain to me what cheese curds were and why they were so exciting. The way I understand it, cheese curds come from freshly obtained milk with the cheese layer scraped off. So it is very fresh new cheese. It tends to squeak when you eat it fresh. Essentially it is baby cheese, so every time you hear a squeak from you cheese curds, just think to yourself, that’s the cheese trying to talk to you saying “baby cheese, baby cheese” in a very high pitched voice. It was delicious, especially when it got up to room temperature, as it allowed more squeaking.
We called it a relatively early night, as we planned to get another full day of driving in the following day.
Thursday July 20th.
We had another storm during the night, and it was still very wet, with some rain, and a lot of dripping from trees when we woke up to pack the camper. We woke at 5 am and started packing with head lamps. (Head lamps may the best thing ever invented for camping; you need to go get you one.) We tried to use some towels to dry up the canvas as much as we could. The sun started coming up and we got on our way. We had to go from Devil’s Lake to the Badlands, South Dakota. We were finally getting to our first National Park.
We drove I-90 the whole day. We stopped for lunch to eat some leftover chicken sausage with peppers and onions, we even busted out the grill at this rest stop. We drove through a lot of plains and farms. Interesting fact but boring to drive through, South Dakota is 90% ranch or farm land.
We got to the badlands with the sun still up. We stayed in the campground on NPS property. Set up the camper, and then went to go look around.
We drove to an overlook with a little 0.5 mile trail and walked around and watched the sun go down and start to really bring out the colors on the rocks.
Then we wanted to see just a little bit more so started down the road, we saw some bighorn sheep out in the field so pulled over into the next view station. We got out the camera and ran to go get a picture as we didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Well as it turns out there was no rush as the sheep were exceptionally photogenic and headed for the field directly across from us! Our curiosity was temporarily satisfied and then we went back to the camper.
We made some dinner, this time PIZZA! Our best friends got us camping cookbook which revealed to us that we can grill pizza, just make sure the toppings are all cooked first and that you are only cooking the dough and melting the cheese. We took a premade pizza crust topped it with pesto, then diced tomatoes, precooked Turkey, cooked onions, shredded Pepperjack, and crumbled goat cheese. It was delicious as it sounds, and now we look forward to trying even more of the recipes.
Then we cleaned up and it was time for bed.
Friday July 21st
Again overnight we were confronted by a thunderstorm, except this one was a monster. On the weather map we were staring at around 2am when it rolled through we were in the purple, PURPLE! Purple apparently means very gusty winds, crazy lightning, earth shaking thunder, and a downpour with the potential for hail. It was quite the nerve wracking experience, but the pop-up held up well.
We woke up at 530 again, my favorite, so we could get in a hike before we felt like we were baking on the prairie. We headed to the trail head with the trail map firmly pressed on our brains, and we started out. We followed the only people out there up a steep hill, they turned around, but we are serious hikers, so we kept going. Until we realized this was very slippery muddy water run off path that is currently unsurpassable, and not the actual trail, just a look out point we passed several hundred yards ago, which is why the others turned around. So we very carefully, ie butt scooting, made our way back to the bottom to try again. Round 2 we made our way up the trail, we passed the only other people out there and weaved our way up the formations. We found what we thought was the three way trail head and took the right turn we had planned on. This was a very strenuous trail. Made doubly so because of the complete lack of traction on the muddy surface. Several times I had posed the question are you sure this is the trail, because I did NOT want a repeat of our first endeavor. Every time I was greeted with a yes, until we got to the top, and there was no way over, or down, or trail at all. So we busted out our phones to look at the trail map we did not bring, to discover we were supposed to be on a moderate trail cross grassy plains, which was in no way what we were on. Again we had been tricked by water runoff. I was not happy, as you will see in the picture below.
So we again carefully made our way back to what we were absolutely sure was the trail, and fifty feet to the left was an easy crest with very obvious trail markers, the actual three point, well-demarcated, trail head. We finally found our way to the actual trail and started out although still on predominantly muddy footing. Mud although annoying to walk on does allow you to know what wildlife is around. We saw coyote foot prints, deer and pronghorn prints, and badger prints. We saw some deer, interesting birds, and even a little frog. We finished the first half and explore the scenic overlooks, and to avoid the high UV of the early afternoon started back fairly immediately. We finished by noon or so on our 9.5 mile, should have been 8.5 mile, trail.
We got back to the camper and had lunch and changed. Then got back into the car do drive the Badlands loop and the Sage Creek Rim Road (this is unpaved road that usually has more wildlife, and we were determined to find some of the buffalo that live in the park.) We stopped at several overlooks, the best of which is the Pinnacles overlook.
Then we did go on the Sage Creek Rim Road but were overall disappointed with the lack of buffalo that were near enough to see well. Until we exited the park, at the exit gates was a herd of buffalo right in the road! We were very excited and took a ton of pictures.
Then we went into Wall South Dakota, and Wall Drug. We enjoyed our free ice water and 5 cent coffee that we had seen advertised for the preceding 500 miles of our journey. We also had some well-deserved ice cream. Then we headed back to the campground, made dinner, packed everything we could to prepare for another early morning and long day, and prayed for one night of storm free sleep.
Up Next: Rock Climbing and Devil’s Tower!
Honey Popping 