Theodorec Roosevelt National Park - Medora, North Dakota

August 8 and 9, 2014
Sunny, 73 degrees

After 7 days in Custer, South Dakota, we were ready to move on.  We headed north towards North Dakota.  We stayed at Red Tail Campground in Medora, North Dakota, which is pretty much the only decent park there.  Luckily we were able to get a site on the day we arrived due to a cancellation.  I had called the day before to make a reservation but was told they were full.  It was amazing to see how the site escort managed to get everyone into a site, both small RV's and big rigs.  We stayed two nights at $29.85 per night that included a Good Sam discount.  The showers and bathrooms were pretty good.  Previously we have always used our own shower, but on this trip we opted to use the campground showers and have been pleasantly surprised to find them good.  We passed through Hill City and Deadwood in South Dakota and continued to see lots of motorcycles.

Pretty lake with reflections in South Dakota.

Red Cloud, South Dakota, typical small town in South Dakota.

The Black Hills have turned into wide open spaces.


When our campground neighbors saw us put our North Dakota sticker on our map, they started clapping.  They were members of a local camping club and welcomed us to North Dakota.



Theodore Roosevelt National Park is comprised of three sections, north, south and Elkhorn ranch.  We toured the south section.  The Park stretches across 70,416 aces of western North Dakota.  Abundant wildlife, scenic drives, and miles of trails abound.

The park is just spectacular. It was a highlight of our trip.

Loved seeing the wild horses throughout the park.

 Prairie dogs were everywhere.  They are so cute.

1881 Custer County Courthouse Museum - South Dakota

Custer, South Dakota had a small museum run by volunteers ($5 for seniors).  The courthouse was built eight years before South Dakota became a state, it served Custer County for 92 years and has been a museum since 1976. We enjoyed our visit.

Firearm of General George Armstrong Custer, model 1862 Sharps and Hankins .52 caliber, used for hunting antelope at Fort Hays, Kansas.

The 1874 Expedition into the Black Hills, led by General Custer.

Mining Claim - The tin can nailed to this tree stump would have held the owner's mine claim.  Without that legal paper, he'd have been at the mercy of "claim jumpers".

Logging tools

Collection of early typewriters

Chaps

Bear coat and buffalo coat

South Dakota - State Dessert

While getting some groceries in Custer I spotted a sign that referred to South Dakota's state dessert called Kuchen.  These were made by www.kuchenkitchens.com. I had never heard of these but always like to try local foods.  Oh my gosh, they were so good.   Dummy me should have bought more before we left South Dakota, but I didn't do it.  All of these were frozen and worked great in a microwave.  I found some recipes on the Internet, but buying these seemed like a better idea

This Kuchen is similar to a cherry pie, but yet the taste is totally different.

This is a cherry Kolache.  Very good with a morning cup of coffee.

The company also makes these tasty sandwich/snack. These were filled with pepperoni and cheese.  Yummy.

Broken Arrow Campground - Custer, South Dakota

We spent seven days at this campground.  We picked it because of the reviews on RV Park Reviews as well as the places we wanted to visit this time in the Black Hills.  The campground was well maintained with excellent showers.  The owners, Jerry and Sue, definitely take pride in the campground.  The only problem we had was an over abundance of flies.  On the side of our motor home we had at least 50 flies one day.  We had to buy fly poison spray and hung 3 fly strips in the motor home to try and alleviate the problem.  At first I thought it was due to the horses but the flies were everywhere we went.  The cashier at the supermarket as well as the lady at the museum both had fly swaggers in their hand.  Jerry said he believed the problem was due to the earlier amount of rain.  We had also had flies in Kansas and Nebraska.  We enjoyed our stay at Broken Arrow Campground but there are many, many other campgrounds in the Black Hills.

The park definitely had a western theme throughout, even to the shower curtains which had horses on them.  

This guy greeted arriving campers.

Broken Arrow is a horse campground and many people bring their horses so they can ride through the Black Hills.

Mountain bluebirds were a daily occurrence throughout the park.  Bluebirds and cardinals are some of my favorites.

We had the best campsite #22 in the park.  It was on an end and we had a great view of the hills.

The view of the Black Hills from our campsite.

Cowboy Scott delivered our firewood $10 for a couple of great campfires.

Still using our Nu Wave cooktop.  This time for bacon and cheese omelettes.

Another view from our campsite.

Sturgis Bike Rally 2014

We accidentally ended up in the Black Hills of South Dakota at the same time the Sturgis rally was going on.  Some people chose to not go to the Black Hills with so many motorcycles on the roads.  Since we are ex-Harley owners we really enjoyed seeing all the beautiful bikes.  A lot of the surrounding towns really cater to the bikers.  We were in Custer, Hill City, and Deadwood.  Sturgis was about 75 miles from our campground so we didn't go there.  There were plenty of bikes to see anyway.