10th Anniversary in South Dakota

It is crazy to think Thomas and I have been married for so long, but we celebrated our 10th anniversary in 2024. Because of scheduling conflicts, we didn’t get to take our celebratory trip until close to August. That turned out to be a bit of a good thing because we didn’t decide until about a week before we left where exactly we were going to go. We had toyed with the idea of visiting Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, but a lot of the reviews suggested this was not the most dog-friendly of the national parks. As our trip would be in the hottest time of the year, we wouldn’t be able to safely leave the dogs in the van for more than 30 minutes at a time. We tested the van climate and in the 100° heat of Tucson, inside the van could stay under 90° for just about 30 minutes after blasting the AC for a bit, covering the windows, and putting up a blackout curtain in the front. It wasn’t set to get to more than the mid 90’s during our trip, but we definitely wanted to be safe rather than sorry. TLDR: Yellowstone was out.

Our next thought was of South Dakota. We could explore waterfalls in Spearfish Canyon, check out Mt Rushmore, and drive the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Plus, Eremos would get to drive through a bunch of new states during the trip!

Our first stop, after driving for 17 hours, was the Hawk Springs State Recreation Area. We were misled by one of the apps we use to find free places to stay and thought this was a free campground. It definitely seemed too good to be true since there were bathrooms and firepits, plus the campsites were situated around a water reservoir. It wasn’t until we were contemplating staying there on the way back home that I realized whoever posted about that spot on the app was very mistaken. It actually costs $35 for non-residents to camp there…Whoops! We stayed less than 12 hours, anyway. We pulled in after dark, had a lovely night’s sleep, enjoyed the morning sun on the beach with the dogs for a bit, and hit the road again. One fun thing we noticed with the sun shining was that the road to the Recreation Area was lined with sunflowers. It was a very cheery sight.

From Hawk Springs, it was only about a 4 hour drive to Spearfish Canyon in South Dakota. I had scoped out a couple options for where we could stay in each area that depended on traffic and availability. While exploring Roughlock Falls Rd, we found a trailhead to stay on. We were starting to unpack when we noticed a nicely sized parking pullout across the street that had access to the creek and jumped on it. This was the most quaint little camping spot we ever could have wished for. The only downside was our first experience with the brutal biting flies. They were big fans of our new bathroom tent my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday that year.

The next couple days we explored Spearfish Canyon. We checked out Roughlock Falls with its paved walkway and friendly butterflies. Then, we hiked almost to the Devil’s Bathtub. That turned out to be entirely too busy for us to witness with our two rowdy dogs. Plus, there was a creepy guy laying down in the waterfall…The middle of the hike reminded us a lot of The Narrows in Zion Canyon National Park. The trail followed the river and there were sheer rock faces with beautiful patterns. South Dakota was just a bit more green than Utah.

That night, we needed to stock up on groceries and we wanted to just relax and stream a movie, so we stayed the night in a Walmart parking lot. We tried out the new hotpot I had gotten for my birthday and made Beef Stroganoff. I’m sad we won’t be able to use the hotpot in the van on a regular basis. It is the perfect size for a two-person meal and easy to clean, but it is very energy intensive because of the heating element.

Our next stop was Custer State Park which we explored for a few days. We planned to venture out to hike and see the sights nearby and then go back to the same spot each night. We found a loop of dispersed campsites with the coolest rock formations. I tried to take a picture of the actual stone, but it didn’t turn out–it was so sparkly in person!

We were all set to make that our base camp, but Chia decided she couldn’t get enough of the Mountain Thistle and puked all over the van. We had to find a campsite with laundry facilities right quick. The place we found was right off of Needles Highway and had a great little creek running through it. There was a private spot close to the creek where we could throw a ball for the dogs and the showers were divine. The best part was the proximity to the famous tunnels and bridges of Needles Highway and Mt Rushmore.

We also drove the Wildlife Loop before leaving Custer State Park and checked out the Bison for which the area is well known. Then, it was time to make our way home.

Since we found out Hawk Springs was not a free campground, we had to find somewhere else to stay around that area. I found Packer Lake right on the border of Nebraska and Wyoming. I confirmed that it is free to stay there this time! There is a 7 day limit rather than the 14 day limit on BLM land, but we only needed one night. The water was a little murky, but it was a small lake. The sunset was gorgeous! We got the dogs to swim with us and then closed up pretty quickly before the mosquitos got too bad. In the morning, I made us nachos with bison meat we had picked up in Custer and we took a quick dip to test out Chia’s backpack before making the long drive home.