South Dakota

Out of the Rain and into…More Rain

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 20: 6/21/24
From: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park)
To: Fort Atkinson, WI
Distance: 469 miles

I wake after 4 hours of sleep and see a message that came through on my phone an hour or so after we left the campground. (I should still be sleeping right now, I’m exhausted, but my body says no, apparently. Adrenaline memory?)

We made the right decision.

Now, we just need to go back this morning and find out if we still have a tent and clothes to collect or if it’s all been washed away… We eat breakfast at the hotel, take showers we weren’t expecting to have this morning, and get dressed in the clothes we came in. Then, it’s back to the campground to see if we still have a tent, sleeping bags, and clothing. I know I said we were done camping after this night and that I looked forward to a few days in a hotel, but I didn’t mean I wanted to give up all of our tenting supplies for the future.

By the light of day, we can see the creeks and rivers in the area are absolutely flooded. The rain is still coming down, though with less force.The roadways back into the campground are passable, including the bridge that was flooded last night. (Though it’s covered in debris.) We get back to our campsite and are shocked to find most of the runoff creek water has subsided off the site, though it’s still flowing swiftly and carrying a lot of water into Split Rock Creek. Most importantly, though? Our tent is still standing. And everything in it is (mostly) dry. The tent is actually fairly soaked through from all the rain, but we don’t think the floodwater ever came all the way to the tent. We pack up as quickly as possible since the current forecast calls for more heavy rain and even the possibility of isolated tornadoes. No thank you. We’re ready to leave.

The GPS takes us a strange route  back to I-90 (dirt roads that are called “streets” and “avenues” despite being dirt), which we can only assume is due to closed, flooded roadways. And we must be right. Because when we finally do make it back to I-90, we see more devastation. Every creek (and there are many) is flooded so far over its banks, it looks like a full-blown river. Have you ever seen a tractor trailer on its side in the middle of a river? As of today, we have. We pass several more accidents due to flooded roads. As a result, the westbound side of I-90 is shut down, but the eastbound side remains open. We are grateful for that at least. 

But the rain isn’t finished with us yet. Husband drives through alternating downpours and light rain for the next two hours. We finally drive out of it, only to drive back into it again an hour later when I’m driving. We are absolutely astounded that a storm this big can be dumping this much water for this long. And it continues for most of our way to Wisconsin. The skies are dark and dangerous and I miss the Pennsylvania mountains that break up this kind of weather so it never lasts so long. We marvel again and again that we’re still driving through this horrible weather.

We finally reach our hotel not far outside of Madison, WI and we are relieved to be off the road. (And the hotel has the sweetest antique tap bell I want to grab for an uncle who collects them… I refrain. Barely.) The last 24 hours have been quite the ordeal. We still have a few more days and one more destination before we head back to Pennsylvania, but I think it’s safe to say that as much as the last three weeks have been an incredible adventure, we’re looking forward to returning home.

We watch a little television, I catch up on the blog, and Husband and kids take off for the jacuzzi for a half hour before bed while I read. I don’t know where they all find the energy to hop in a hot tub at 10 pm, but this trip is about seeing and doing, so have at it, fam.

Palisades State Monsoon

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 19: 6/20/24
From: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground)
To: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park)
Distance: 290 miles 

We “sleep in” today. Though we wake often in the tent, we manage to ignore the daylight until 8:30. It’s been raining on and off all night, too, but the tent has held up well. Fog covers the rugged peaks in the Badlands and we’re supposed to hit significant storms on the way east today. It’s going to be a tedious 4-5 hours on the road, especially with the incessant wind.

We pack up camp and head out to the gift shop, which has a diner where we expected to eat breakfast, but neither kid wants anything on the menu, so we leave with the intention of stopping somewhere else along the way.

We make a quick detour to a prairie dog “ranch” we saw when we came into the park, where we proceed to watch the critters poking their heads out and running around. You can buy peanuts in the store to feed them, which is probably why they are so tame and easily photographed.

There’s just one problem with relying on our own plans for breakfast. There’s nothing “along the way.” We end up at two different gas stations, both insanely busy. Is Summer Solstice a holiday in South Dakota? It certainly seems like everyone is out today. By the time we get any sort of food, it’s noon. Breakfast was basically yogurt and pastries. No one is complaining. (Lies. Husband is complaining. He wants eggs and bacon and something significant in his stomach.)

The next two hours on the road are some of the scariest. Lightning, thunder, wind, and heavy rain abound. We pass one car stuck in the middle of the grass that divides the highway. They must have spun out with all the water on the road. I’m getting worried that our campsite might be flooded out. When I check the weather forecast, there’s areal flood watches over the entire county.

I was looking forward to seeing this today, but I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The weather on this trip continues to be wild.

When we reach the campground, there’s a small break in the rain. It lightens just long enough for us to set up the tent if we move at light speed. We get everything inside just in time for the next round of pouring rain. Split Rock Creek is roaring pretty good and I’m a little disappointed. I picked this site specifically because I know how much Husband loves the water (even when he can’t fish).

We spend an hour and a half just catching up on social media, reading, drawing, and napping and when the rain lightens again, we venture out for dinner. A sports bar in Brandon, SD called Tailgators calls our name and has plenty of gluten-free options.  The meal is incredible, as is the dessert. During dinner, we play each other in archery, basketball, and darts in Game Pigeon on our phones (it *is* a sports bar after all). And when we come out to the parking lot afterwards, it’s just starting to rain again. 

Back at the campground, we climb into the tent just in time for the next downpour. It looks like this will be our night! From the tent, we hear the roar of the creek just below us and train whistles from trains coming down the tracks on the other side of the creek. Plus thunder and rain. So much rain.

At 11 pm, the Sheriff drives through the park with a message playing on the loudspeaker that severe weather will be developing in the area over the next several hours. What does this mean for us? Is he telling us to leave? Just warning us that it’s going to get sketchy? We don’t know. What I do know is that our little tent site #94 at Palisades State Park ends up with a raging river on two sides of us by 1 am.

The storm gets so loud and vicious that I can’t fall asleep, despite Husband’s snores being drowned out entirely by the rain on our tent and the rushing water of the creeks. So at 1 am, I check the weather app and see that we’re now in a flood warning, which makes sense since I can hear the small trickle of a creek beside us now rip-roaring and emptying into the larger one. It’s already flooded half the campsite and is still rising. What I can’t understand is how the weather reports could be so wrong all day and into the evening, predicting an end to the rain in “2 hours” no matter what time of day I checked. Regardless of time, the radar always seemed to look like this:

I wake Husband. I know we’re *probably* okay where we are (the tent is on the highest ground on the site), but I don’t want to be a news headline for all the wrong reasons. And I can’t sleep when I’m terrified the way I am. I like data. I like being able to analyze data and figure out the *right* answer to problems. Husband thinks we’re safe where we are. But he agrees that if the kids and I aren’t sleeping because we don’t feel safe, then we should get a hotel. 

So at 2 am, I book a hotel 6 miles down the road. We aren’t even sure we can get out of the campground. When we try, we face a small bridge already under several inches of swiftly moving water, a veritable river flowing up and around both sides of it as well as through it. We make the right decision and don’t try to go through it, but it’s scary how quickly your mind thinks “Well, it’s just a couple inches deep. We could probably…” I’ve seen too many videos. Instead, we turn around to wake the camp host (a saint!) who instructs us to use a service road to get to the main highway and tells us if we can’t get out for whatever reason, we can move the tent to any open site.

We reach our hotel safely by 2:30 am, but it takes an hour for the adrenaline to wear off before I can even think of sleep. Water is no joke. It’s powerful and fast and unpredictable.

Older Child says the quiet of the hotel is weird after so many hours of listening to rain pounding the tent. They say it’s like being at the beach all day and then coming home and still hearing the phantom echo of waves in your ear. It certainly is.

I know people keep telling us we’re creating so many amazing memories for our family, but this kind? This kind, I could do without. For now, I’m just glad we’re safe and dry and can hopefully get a few hours of sleep.

Wind, Clouds, and Highway Marketing

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 18: 6/19/24
From: Sheridan, WY
To: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground)
Distance: 322 miles

Up at 8:30, showers again whoo! 2 in 12 hours and I relish every drop of hot water. We mosey out of the hotel and head to Perkins for breakfast. Bad news. They don’t have gluten-free pancakes so Older Child goes hungry until we get to the car for GF snacks. They also seem kind of down today, ready to wrap up this trip and head home. We offer to send them on a plane, but they just kind of look at me like I’ve lost my mind… Guess we’ll keep driving.

Before we leave Perkins, Husband decides he absolutely must play the claw game. It’s 5 tries for the price of whatever one credit card swipe gives you and he ends up scoring two stuffed animals on his last two tries. He celebrates his win on the way out as I nod to another parent waiting to be seated and tell her this is actually my third child.

When we get on Rt 90, Siri tells us we have 312 miles to go on this road. Well. At least we have no twisty-turny-windy roads today. But the wind is vicious, with 40 mph crosswinds. Driving the speed limit at 80 mph, it’s a lot to fight against.

Along the way, we pass The Cowboy Church, which intrigues us enough to look up online. Husband thinks it’s a place where cowboys learn to cowboy. I think it’s an actual church. Turns out it’s a Wesleyan church, not a place to teach cowboying. I win.

We see a Cabela’s (which might be the tenth one we’ve seen or the twelfth or the fifteenth; we’ve lost track) and we stop so Husband can pick up sandals since he’s finally worn the old ones out beyond repair. Younger Child says he’s like a “new man” with his new shoes. He thanks the old pair for being good to him for six years, then tosses them in the trash outside the store.

About 45 miles out from the town of Wall, South Dakota, we start seeing signs on the side of the road for Wall Drug, where you can get a milk shake, root beer, coffee for 5 cents (free with a donut if you’re a veteran or a honeymooner), western wear, bison burgers, jewelry, gold, homemade fudge, an 80 ft brontosaurus, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. And the signs never stop. For the next 45 miles, there are signs every half mile or so. Wall Drug has been featured in Parade magazine and People magazine. It’s been mentioned in the New York Times.

At this point, we do exactly what they want us to do. We say, “Okay, I’ve got to check this place out.” So I look it up online and find out that Wall Drug sees upwards of 2 million tourists per year. Fine. We’ll go. But only because I need Ibuprofen for a headache and they do, at least, actually have a drug store. It’s a quaint old-style “town” and I could see how people could get sucked in for hours.

But I’m done with Wall Drug after just two of the many, many, many stores. I have to remind Younger Child that we cannot possibly look at every item here, but I think they might be trying anyway. So I sit on a bench out front, type up today’s experiences and wait for the family to be as done peopling as I am. (I waited until it looked empty to take a photo, but nothing about this place was empty. So many people!)

We get to the campground in the Badlands National Park around 5, set up our tent in the wind that’s still blowing, and make a quick dinner from dehydrated camp meals. Then we head for a drive through the park to see the rugged landscape, gawk at barn swallows that have claimed an entire shed as their nesting ground, and watch the sunset. The sky is mostly overcast and rain is predicted tonight, but there’s a sliver of cloudless sky on the horizon and it’s enough to make for a spectacular sunset. In fact, it creates a rainbow in the storm front moving in from behind where we stand and sets the grassland glowing. You’ll have to wait to see it, of course, as I’ll be spending the next few weeks processing the photos. But when I do, they’ll all be here on the website. Plus, let’s be real, I’m sure I’ll share them on social media.

Back at the campground in the dark, we get ready for bed. But first? A game of Oregon Trail. I “die” on the second card played— a whole 4% into the game. Younger Child “dies” on the next card. Husband declares this is stupid and we must start over. We do.

Guess who’s the first player to die? Husband “drowns” 20% into the game. We mourn his loss and I follow him to the grave a little after 80% into the game. As we play, we hear coyotes in the distance. It’s an incredible sound. Both kids make it to Oregon in the game, so we celebrate for them, call it a night, and head to bed. After tonight, we have only one more night in a tent. Then we’re into three nights of hotels before heading back home. I’ll miss camping!

You Can’t Have it All

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Original Post: February 15, 2016

They say all good things must come to an end, and perhaps that’s why I’ve put off posting this last blog entry!  

On day 21, we were up at 5:30 due to a crying baby in the camp site across from us (seriously – what is with these parents???) and while Nate packed up the tent, I headed to get sunrise photos.  The sun was coming up quickly, though, and I only hoped I’d reach the lake in time!  This may have been the only instance in the entire trip where I was behind the wheel of our car.  Nate claimed the road for his own.  Though I was briefly distracted by an elk, I did managed to make the lake in time for a sunrise shot. Whew!

The Badlands National Park in South Dakota was the last of our vacation destinations before heading back to rainy eastern Pennsylvania.  Leaving the Grand Tetons, on what officially capped three weeks on the road, I knew we had quite the drive ahead of us and even though I’d hoped to get one of the camp sites just inside the park, my expectations weren’t high.  Like Jenny Lake Campground, Cedar Pass Campground is first-come/first-served.

The drive was one of the most interesting along the way, particularly when we had to stop for a herd of cattle being driven across the road by a couple of real cowboys.  People really do still have these occupations!  I think I’ve been working in an office for too long!  The only thing that would have made the sight better was if the cowboy’s horse hadn’t spooked, misstepped, and fallen.  On the pavement.  On top of his rider.  You would think that since I had a camera in hand, I might have tried to capture this moment.  Perhaps the fact that I didn’t means I have a shred of human decency and capturing the image wasn’t as important as making sure both rider and horse were okay.  (Other than hurt pride and human anger, both seemed fine!)

You can see the horse’s misstep here…  This was right before it happened!

We originally stopped for lunch at a Subway, but upon seeing the line that went out the door and around the side of the building, we decided to review our options.  A good thing we did.  We found the Trucker’s Outpost Cafe, where we learned that there was a festival or a rodeo in town (that explained both the number of people and horses in the direct area!), and had a better meal than we could have gotten at Subway anyway.  The meal was surprisingly good and the rest from driving was a welcome change from hours in the car.

We arrived at Cedar Pass Campground in the Badlands around 5 pm, and even though we had figured it would be the case, I was disappointed that there was no spot left to pitch a tent.  We instead turned around and booked a room in an ‘eh’ motel just outside of the park.  (Yes, ‘eh’ is an official rating.)  It wasn’t ideal, but getting a shower was an unexpected delight and very much welcome!

Nate points out the sheer drop just a few feet from where he stands.  No thank you, I’ll stay in the parking lot. That’s what telephoto lenses are for!

I’d always wanted to photograph the Badlands landscape at night and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to do so, but finding the right place to take a photo isn’t easy when you’re tripping over your own feet and hoping not to step on a snake.  So, we gladly took a trip to the park during the daylight hours first, just to ensure that we’d get to where we wanted to go when we were ready.

The landscape is quite breathtaking and it’s easy to see why the park was named Badlands.  It’s a lonely place and though it’s a national park, crowds don’t dominate here the way they do at the Grand Canyon, which gives visitors a hint of what it might have been like for the Native Americans who lived here centuries ago.  There’s something very quiet and very spiritual happening here.

As we ate our dehydrated camp meal while watching the sun set from the parking lot of a lookout, we noticed thunderheads off in the distance.  I fought the excitement building in my gut.  A thunderstorm!  In the Badlands!!  

Since I’d first begun planning this trip at age eighteen, I had hoped to encounter a wild thunderstorm in the Badlands.  How amazing would it be if Mother Nature actually obliged?  A part of me hesitated, though.  I wanted beautiful night skies, too!  But you can’t have it all.

Or can you?

Mother Nature – far fiercer than she looks through a wide angle lens (sigh…wrong lens).

We returned to the hotel to work on loading photos to the computer and conversing with the outside world.  Hooray for wifi.  By 10:30, we decided it was time to venture out again.  We were hardly out the door when we realized that the storm we had seen rolling in the distance was producing massive lighting strikes.  This was nature demanding our respect!

But of course… I hadn’t brought the right camera lens.  Nate insisted that we return to the motel to get the lens so that I could capture the sight, and we did, but by the time we were back to the park, the storm had more or less run out of steam and we were left with not much on film.  But, oh the experience!  It was worth more than any photo I could have taken!

Back to the lookout point for some night photography.  The Badlands is, without a doubt, the perfect place to capture stunning silhouetted landscape and the Milky Way stretching far overhead.  

In the end, I got both my thunderstorm and my clear night skies.  It was the perfect way to end the vacation, and sure, it wasn’t quite over yet, but the heart of our trip revolved around the natural beauty that can be seen and visited throughout the expanse of this amazing country.

So, as election season begins to rile friends, family, and neighbors across the United States, I encourage you to remember that this country was built on much greater things than what politicians would have you believe are important.  

Travel.

Experience.

See it for yourself!

And if you need someone to help you plan…I’m really good with Excel.