Moving East

On Thursday we left the Tetons and started to head east. We changed our plans for our campsites for the next week due to the heat that was forecast. With the highs supposed to be over 30 degrees C, we were concerned it might be too challenging to sleep, since our campgrounds looked like there was no shade and no electric hookups. We headed to a town called Thermopolis in Wyoming where there are hot springs. The last hour of our drive was through the Wind Canyon and was spectacular!

We had an early supper when we arrived at our campground and headed to the hot springs and spent the next couple of hours there. They had both indoor and outdoor pools but they kept the temperatures around 35-37 degrees C. They did however, have a hot tub outside that was kept at a nice 39 degrees C.

We spent 2 nights there before moving on towards South Dakota. We made a stopover on Saturday night in a city park in Douglas where we had stopped on our way to Yellowstone. It was a nice quiet place along the river with only a few other campers for the night.

On Sunday we arrived in South Dakota where we are staying for 5 nights. Once again we have reserved an electric site since most of the time we are expecting temperatures around 30 degrees C. It’s a small campground that had one last site available for Sunday night but by Monday there were lots of sites empty.

Today we decided to go for a drive to the north. There is a large area in this corner of South Dakota called the Black Hills which has a lot of tourism and national parks to explore. We drove through Wind Cave National Park but the cave there is closed this month for some maintenance work. From there we went into Custer State Park and drove the loop road. There were lots of bison there – unfortunately we are too early for their bison roundup which occurs the end of September. It is a real event to see apparently.

We also saw a group of burros on the road. Years ago the burros were used for pack animals for travelling through the area. When they were no longer used, they were released into the wild to roam. However, they have become beggars since people feed them! It causes quite the traffic tie up at this location, where they tend to stay, since there is a stream for water and a grove of trees for shade.

We headed back to our campsite mid afternoon since there was some possibility of thunderstorms and the weather changed from our clear blue skies and 33 degrees C to dark clouds and 17 degrees C. We may wait until Wednesday to resume our sightseeing since there is a cold front and cloudy weather forecast for tomorrow.