Monday, Aug. 19, 2013 – Travel Day to Fort Meade, SD (State #44)

Woke up with the alarm, but jumped out of bed immediately because when I heard a whinny (from Clio) and looked out my window, my bad boy Apollo was eating hay off the back of my pickup! He had escaped yesterday once, but I put on more line on the corral, but evidently on the wrong end, as he got out once again. I heard a vehicle, as well, apparently someone was concerned enough to follow him, though it really wasn’t necessary, as the entire campground is fenced in, with cattle guards at several road crossings, so he wasn’t going anywhere. Anyway, I got up and dressed quickly, tied him up near the corrals, and set about getting ready leave. We were out of there by about 8:10 Mountain Time (which, btw, is an hour later than across the Little Missouri River which the campground bordered, which is in Central Time). My phone has been reading Central Time the whole time we’ve been here, apparently the nearest tower is on the north side of the bridge. In any event, we headed south on the still very busy US 85 (which has had non-stop traffic on it the entire time we’ve been here, even throughout the night, including Sunday morning!), stopping at the intersection on the interstate to get gas and grab some breakfast. We had hoped for a fast food place because of our long drive today, but choices were limited (to one, essentially), so we stopped at the only restaurant we were likely to find between here and our destination, a hotel restaurant called Trappers, which turned out to house the “Trappers Hall of Fame.” Buffalo and elk were on the menu (though not for breakfast, or I might have tried some), and the atmosphere was pretty unique, lots of old western and trapping gear around, and the salad bar was actually a beautifully-lacquered wood canoe full of ice. Hubby ordered two blueberry pancakes, not realizing that one pancake was about 12 inches across, I just had a regular bacon and egg breakfast. When we were leaving, we noticed that behind the hotel was “Horse Lodging,” a row of corrals and run-in sheds for hotel occupants traveling with their horses. That’s one thing I really like about the West, few people are surprised that you’re traveling with a horse! Anyway, we crossed the plains uneventfully, stopping at Walmart in Spearfish, then gas at the Phillips, before taking the final 30 minute journey to Sturgis. Well, actually, it turned out to be a little longer than that, for reasons of my own making. I never found a park map for Ft. Meade, so I wasn’t sure where the horse camp was, so we ended up coming in the north side of the park. The gravel BLM road was a bit twisty, so instead of just diving in head first not knowing where we were going, I call the office and discovered the horse camp was just a half mile off the freeway along the south end of the park, so we decided to return to the freeway and go down two exits to #34, which, indeed, had us in the campground in no time. A very nice spot here, small but well wooded, with enough openings for Hubby to get a satellite signal with no problem. Highlines were already in place, but I ended up putting ours up underneath theirs, because they didn’t allow for as much movement as ours do. We were set up and settled in by about 5:30, though Hubby was struggling a bit, his hip hurts more now than it did when he fell a few days ago, so we put an ice pack on it and are keeping him medicated on acetaminophen. Watched a movie and went to bed, tired from the long drive.