Custer, SD to Pickerel Lake State Park, SD
Trip Start
May 08, 2006
1
47
59
Trip End
Oct 2006
Waubay, South Dakota, United States
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Custer, South Dakota to Pickerel Lake State Park
near Waubay, South Dakota
The day started with a drive out of the Black Hills and into the Badlands. Before we got out of Custer State Park we did see a small herd of bison - but here they call them buffalo, after the Teton Park literature cautioned us that the proper name was bison. How confusing. "You can call me anything you want as long as you call me for dinner"...................
Anyway, we headed across some nondescript country and toward the Badlands. Jeff has early memories of a family vacation, climbing all around those eroded hills with his brother Ken. More recently the movie ThunderHeart, which takes place in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that surrounds the park, has been an introduction to this country. Well, this morning it wasn't very inspirational. We argued a bit about our plan for the day, deciding that putting on miles, maybe even using an interstate once and again, was the plan. And we did.
We basically drove diagonally across the state from the southwest to the northeast. Our impression is that South Dakota is mostly pretty darn flat - the buttes shown on the maps were visible but unimpressive; an agricultural state, a conservative state, and a anti-abortion state. Not really our cup of tea. But it was an interesting drive, moving from the dryer country of the southwest to the slightly greener country in the northeast, with more and more little glacial "pothole" lakes.
We camped on one of those lakes, Pickerel Lake, and found that South Dakota is in fact also a fishing state. The campgound was nice, but crowded with families who played late into the night. Our site was nice however, Rubi got to swim, and we slept pretty well. Sorry, no photos today!
