More South Dakota 7/12

I don’t know how we stood it last night, the temp. got all the way down to 71! No breeze, had all the windows open. It was nice and quiet all night. It was getting warm and humid so we got going on our morning walk. We were gone a little less than an hour and walked out to the east edge of DeSmet and back. Pretty neighborhoods with old houses and lovely flower gardens. Most lawns were brown, no rain and going into a heat wave here. Most of western South and North Dakota are 100+; the eastern parts are in the high 90’s.

We hit the road at 10 a.m. A little later than usual because of our walk and Lar had emptied our water tank so he refilled it before we left. We always travel full, because we have gotten into parks that have water problems or we end up dry camping and that would be no fun without water! We headed east out of DeSmet and then hit highway 81 north to Watertown. We wanted to see the huge Terry Redlin Art Gallery. Around 150 of his original oils are on display there. So stunning to see them in person. We have two of his prints. His latest releases had a different style to them. More vibrant colors and they had a loose rhythm to them. The gallery was phenomenal. It is three stories plus a basement. Three floors devoted to his art, and all lit beautifully. If you aren’t familiar with his work, I am sure he is online somewhere. AND it was free!

We headed west out of Watertown and then north on highway 25 and then we took a county road that came out at Waubay. A few miles south of Waubay we turned down to this lake; Bitter Lake. We were all alone and pulled out our chairs and sat there and had lunch. We really would have liked to have stayed there the night. We hadn’t noticed any no camping signs posted around the parking lot, but we decided to walk over to what looked like a notice board by the boat ramp and there it was; NO Camping. Drat. We talked about chancing it, but we HAD seen the sign, so we moved on. It was surrounded by prairie hills and was soooo relaxing.

Waubay was supposed to have a city park with free camping, but this town was really small and the park was not very exciting so we headed west again to Webster. We drove all around Webster looking for the City Park sign. No sign, but as we headed back to the highway we came in on I noticed some RV’s. Yup, sure enough, found it. There are several sights with full hook-ups that were $12 a night and across the street was a grassy loop that had just 110 electricity but was free the first night; just what we were looking for. It is close to the highway, but around dark we figure it will be pretty quiet. It was hot, 92, but windy, so in the shade it was pleasant.

While we were at the lake having lunch, our solar controller had malfunctioned, so Lar took about 15 minutes to trouble-shoot that and fix it. It you hit the road in a trailer or motor home and don’t have some technical know how with all its systems, you better have lots of money! There seems to always be something that needs tinkering with. The guy that fixed our furnace in Colorado told us that the motion that our rigs are subjected to equals a 4.0 earthquake. Only those of us from California will get that correlation I guess!!!!

All along the South Dakota highways are these big giant rolls of hay. We are used to just weeds growing along our roads on the west coast, but here the prairie grasses and grains are cut and harvested along the roads. I haven’t heard who owns it, if it is the state and they sell it off or if the adjacent land owner takes care of it, but they use all they can. So much to learn!