A Short Overnight Stop and Two 5 km Volksmarches in Hill City, South Dakota, - Thursday, June 2 to Friday, June 3, 2022

We're going to cover a bit of ground in this blog. On Thursday morning, June 2, we headed north from Wild Bill's RV and Trailer Park in Boise City, Oklahoma, on U.S. 385 and U.S. 287 to Kit Carson, Colorado. From there, we went due north on CO 59, U.S. 36 west, and CO 61 to Sterling, Colorado. 

We only did rest stops and lunch for the cat and us. Our destination was North Sterling State Park Reservoir in the Elks Campground, a total of 318 miles. 

The next few photos are from the Two Buttes Rest Area atop a hill with a view for miles.

The rest area rock formations.

History on signs at the rest area.

Two Buttes Rest Area. You can walk
around and stretch your legs.

From Sterling, Colorado, we took County Roads 39, 37, and 46 to the campground. We arrived and had camp set up by 5 pm. The campground has large sites with most of them overlooking the reservoir. I took photos of the campground, we had dinner, and called it a night. 

The next photos are of our campsite and North Sterling State Park Elks Campground. We had a lovely view of the reservoir and didn't even have to unhook our 5th wheel tonight.

Beauty and Rigamarole in our huge site.

Each campsite had a covered
picnic table.

Our view of North Sterling Reservoir.

You could take a path down to
the beach. We camped up above
the water.

North Sterling Reservoir.

A small rig came in later and parked 
next to us, but didn't block the view.

Friday, June 3: In the morning, we were on our way early. Again, we took paved county road 46 east, then turned north on State Route 113/19/Old Post Road into Nebraska. In Sidney, we got on U.S. 80 Business north which turned into U.S. 385 (the Gold Rush Highway). We stayed on U.S 385 to Hot Springs, South Dakota. 

As we got close to Hot Springs, we saw huge black clouds in front and to the east of us. We went around Hot Springs to the west on U.S. 18 and State Route 89 north and missed most of the big storm. We did catch an edge of it that dumped rain on us. We reconnected to U.S. 385 farther north and took that all the way to our next campground, Echo Valley Park Campground, north of Custer, South Dakota. (It's practically next to Crazy Horse, which is why I chose it.) Today, we covered 256 miles. 

On U.S. 385 north, skirting the
edge of a thunderstorm.

We are going west around the storm.

Uh, oh. It looks like we're heading
straight into it now.

It was wet and dreary when we checked in at 1 pm. We let the showers pass and then Bob set up camp. We worried about our Volksmarch scheduled for the next day. The forecast called for rain showers and thunderstorms. If thunder is heard, they shut down the walk and get everyone off the mountain for their safety. 

Susan Medlin was in the area for the Crazy Horse Walk, but she decided not to do that walk this weekend because she had so much going on. She wanted to drive to Colorado Springs on Saturday instead. That meant going to bed and getting up really early. (It's a 6-hour and 45-minute drive.)

Since we were all together in one place on Friday afternoon, Susan Medlin, Bob, and I did two 5 km walks in Hill City during the afternoon. On the first walk, we headed north on the Mickelson Trail bike path. This walk took us through some Hill City neighborhoods and downtown Hill City. For the other walk, we did an out-and-back southbound on the Mickelson Trail bike path.

Northbound on the Mickelson Trail
bike path.

Bob and Susan just crossed
under a bridge.

I think there were five deer
on the hillside, but you can 
only see four of them.

Local geology.

A nice neighborhood
in Hill City, SD.

Next, we did the out-and-back 5 km walk on the southbound part of the Mickelson Trail bike path. We walked past some campgrounds along a creek and some nice log homes.

Bob and Susan Medlin.

When we finished the walks, we drove to Mangiamo Pizza in Hill City for dinner. They make their own root beer. It was very delicious...the pizza and the root beer!

Mangiamo! Restaurant.

Across the street from the restaurant is the largest Smoky Bear sculpture in the world. Sitting at 30' tall and 25' wide, this Smokey Bear sculpture was built in recognition of 25 students from the Hill City School District who, in 1939, helped put out one of the largest fires ever in the Black Hills. After the fire, the Smokey Bear symbol was gifted to the Hill City High School as a mascot; it's the only high school in the region that has exclusive rights to have graduation at Mt. Rushmore. 

Dahl's Chainsaw Art of Hill City donated time and money to help build Smokey--and it only took seven people ten days to build! Tourists can sit in Smokey's outstretched paw for photos.

People had been around the sculpture taking photos throughout the afternoon. I finally got a shot without all the people!

Smokey Bear sculpture at
Jordan Dahl's Chainsaw 
Art in Hill City, SD.

That's it for today. We headed back to the 5th wheel to relax for the evening. 

Tomorrow, we do the Crazy Horse 10k Volksmarch. 

Sunday, Bob will run the Deadwood Marathon. While he does that, I will be doing the 10k Lead Volksmarch. Gotta keep these bodies moving!