To keep things from being confusing (especially if you follow our real-time adventures on Instagram) – I’m about a month behind in blogging, here are some of our adventures from the week of July 26, 2015. Hopefully I’ll get caught up again!
After spending nearly a week in Spearfish, we were ready to head East toward Minneapolis, Minnesota – so we could get our fresh water tank repaired. We had been waiting for storms to clear up in the middle part of South Dakota and when they did – we bolted across the state.
We made a stop at Wall Drug – which we knew absolutely nothing about – but we figured we should stop since it was famous. I honestly thought it was going to be a large gas station off the freeway – I had no idea how massive it would be.
I parallel parked our trailer in the motorhome lot. Booyah. And then I made sandwiches in the trailer before we headed into Wall Drug to explore. We do this often – we’ll park somewhere along the highway and eat lunch in the trailer – a luxury when you travel with your kitchen and food supplies.
Wall Drug has been around since 1931. It was crazy crowded and had lots of novelty stores. We walked through and took some photos and then headed on our way. Here are some of the photos. . . .
So that’s it. That’s Wall Drug. Honestly I wasn’t overly impressed (is that horrible?), but I’m glad we stopped in – to say that we did. 🙂
From there we tried to spend a night in Kennebec, South Dakota – and even had a spot reserved at the Kennebec KOA – but I was getting so many nearby hail and lightning storm alerts on my phone that we actually packed up and left our spot around 5 p.m. to boondock in Cabela’s parking lot farther east in Mitchell, South Dakota. Ugh – it was an expensive spot, like $50, too! But it wasn’t worth the risk.
Between the broken water tank and the constant storm alerts, we were honestly starting to feel a little bit discouraged. The stormy summer weather of the Plains really had us on our toes. Lots of hail warnings – which make us nervous, living in a tin house that can easily be damaged by large hail. Plus tornado warnings, lightning, thunder and heavy rains – I guess this is just part of a normal (late) July in South Dakota? But it wasn’t typical weather for us West Coasters living in a tiny travel trailer and it honestly caused me a lot of angst.
After boondocking at Cabela’s in a a very HUMID Mitchell, South Dakota, we headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where we had two nights booked at the Jellystone Park Campground. We had heard these campgrounds were fun and family-friendly and we were looking forward to relaxing after an eventful few days crossing the state of South Dakota.
We needed this! We had a couple days of beautiful sunny weather and we took full advantage of the things to do in the Jellystone Park Campground!
The pool was fantastic – nice and big, with a great wading area for Hadley and plenty of swimming space for Liam. We breathed a big sigh of relief to be across the state and even though we did have a bad thunderstorm one night – it wasn’t anything compared to the alerts we were getting earlier in the week.
They also had a great jumping pillow – free to campers – that the kids spent a of time on. They also had mini golf, volleyball, movie showings and lots of activities scheduled throughout the day. We did play Wii Sports in the main activity building – which Liam was thrilled about, since we don’t have a gaming system in the Airstream.
And Yogi Bear even made the rounds in the evening – which the kids enjoyed. I think we’d definitely stay at a Jellystone campground in the future – it was super kid-friendly and was a great place to relax after a stressful week on the road.
From here we’ll head to Minnesota. . . .
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