Out West 2022 (Yellowstone to Custer South Dakota)

December 30, 2023 P-TParaD Comments 0 Comment

This is the continuation of our Out West 2022 summer vacation. Catch up on our first post here. In this post we leave Yellowstone and head towards South Dakota.

July 5, 2022 (Yellowstone to Bighorn National Forest)

This was a sad day to leave Yellowstone. Our eventual destination was Custer SP, but 12 hours in the truck wasn’t happening. So a halfway point in Bighorn National Forest was the compromise.

We packed up and got on the road by 8 with the truck pointed east. The park’s east entrance (heads towards Cody, WY) is stunningly beautiful, but it was quite a workout pulling Maddie Montana over it.

Albertson’s in Cody was a kind sight for reasonably priced food. We also stopped in Worland, WY for fuel and lunch in the rig before heading back into the wild.

We selected an area in Bighorn National Forest mostly because it was halfway, but also it’s next to Leigh Creek Dump Station. Leigh Creek is run by the US Forest Service and is free. It has 3 lanes each with dump, wash water, and fresh water. It might be one of the nicest dump stations I’ve ever seen.

Instead of humping a full tank of fresh up the mountain we filled at the dump station and dumped the tanks in the morning on the way out. Our site was great.

A camper in a meadow in Bighorn National Forest — This great spot was in a meadow at 9242′.

We had a quiet night playing baseball, cards, and making a good dinner until the mosquitoes came out in force. Once they came out we started to wind down and took a nice rest.

July 6, 2022 (Bighorn National Forest to Custer, South Dakota)

a RV in game lodge campground in Custer State Park, South Dakota — You can’t see it in the picture, but the right side of the site is 4″ low…just enough to put our auto-level in a frenzy

Travel day again. We got moving in the morning and hit the dump station on the way out of the forest. Once we got out of the mountains, the drive was pretty boring. Just wide open I-90 in eastern WY.

We arrived at our site in Game Lodge Campground in Custer State Park, South Dakota as a storm was brewing. The site was way out of level. The auto leveling jacks threw error codes 3 times and we had to readjust and hook up twice. On the last attempt, it started absolutely raining sideways. The jacks finally could come to an agreement with the laws physics and find level.

For dinner, we headed to Legion Lake Lodge in the state park. Probably the best meal we’ve had on the trip and still a good buy. The chicken fried steak with bacon gravy was wonderful. We really enjoy this park.

July 7, 2022 (Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota)

I rented a 4-seater RZR for the day. It was originally going to be a surprise for the kids. I planned to tell them we were going on a long hike and make it sound miserable…you know, dad stuff. I let them in on the secret, when the truck was sick way back in Grand Teton, to cheer them up.

The shop we rented from is in downtown Custer, South Dakota. We arrived at 7:30 am to get all the paperwork out of the way and orientation to the 3000 miles of trails Black Hills Natl Forest has to offer. UTVs are street legal in South Dakota. So we headed out on the highway right into 65 mph traffic.

a family in a UTV — Everyone was having fun.

We spent the morning toodling around. There is an old silica mine that the rental company pointed out, so we stopped at that.

a family walking in a mine — The mine was interesting. It had a few different tunnels to explore.

We stopped for lunch at a Natl Forest picnic area and enjoyed some quiet. After lunch, we drove to a nearby store for cold drinks and a bathroom break. About 6 hours into our 8 hour rental some dark clouds started forming on the horizon.

a storm forming over Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota — The radar did not look good.

We decided to cut our time out short and get back to the rental shop as fast as possible. We were about 45 minutes away from the shop. The clouds looked more and more ominous and lightning flashes became more frequent.

When we turned back on the highway the bottom fell out of the clouds. I was compromising between going as close to the speed limit as possible to not get run over by highway traffic, being able to see through the rain, and dodging the hail that was now flying into the cabin. Aside from getting drenched we made it back to the shop no worse for wear. It was a memorable day for all the wrong reasons, but we had a blast.