June 21-22, 2017
The Black Hills
Rapid City, SD – Nina, SD
On our last day in the Badlands, the thermometer in the car hit 106 degrees. It was time to head to the hills. We had a brief stop in Rapid City to try and find internet, which led us to a coffee shop downtown. We were pleasantly surprised to see how active the city was. The downtown city square had a splash pad full of kids and live music playing throughout the day in the band shell. Laura saw the most amazing thing ever! She is a huge VW Bus nut and while passing by a hotel downtown, we saw a stretch limo VW Bus! Laura was pretty excited about this find and now Rapid City is at the top of her favorite cities list.
After getting our internet and facebook fix we headed West into the Black Hills. I’m not sure why they are called the Black Hills, but it’s where outlaws used to live and gold could be found in the rivers. It’s also where Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse is, but we were a little tired of touristy stuff. Anyways, thanks to www.freecampsites.net we found another great free campsite. Our site was tucked way up high in the hills, surrounded my tall bluffs, green trees, and an icy cold mountain stream. Otherwise, the site was on the rustic side. No toilets or running water. That’s why we have a water filtration kit and a spade shovel 😉
On our first night, we had a solo female traveler as our neighbor. She kept to herself until she accidentally locked her keys in her car and came over to ask us for help. Camrin used her quick thinking and grabbed a pole from our rooftop tent. We were able to reach into one of her cracked front windows and hit the unlock button on the car. We felt pretty bad, she was incredibly panicked. She would have been screwed or would have had to bust out a window if we weren’t there. One of Laura’s worst nightmares is getting locked out of the Jeep in the middle of nowhere, but we also have a spare key, so hopefully, those odds are small.
So, a funny thing happened to Laura on our first night. She’s reluctant to have the story come out, but it is pretty hilarious… sort of. Its evening time and we’re up in the tent. Camrin is teaching Laura how to play cribbage. At some point in the game, Laura scratched her butt. Yes, we know, where is this going. So, she scratches her butt and notices a lump. She ummm… pulls her pants down a little bit and to her horror finds a tick starting to bite into her bum. Camrin, being the good girlfriend that she is, grabs hold of said tick and pulls it off with a little chunk of skin going with it. Ew gross gross gross!!! We laughed about it the next day.
Other than the tick, we liked our campsite so much we decided to stay another day. This gave us a chance to relax, re-organize the jeep, and attempt to work on the blog… although as you can see how late this post is that didn’t happen. After spending the morning exploring the area, we attempted to use our solar shower for the first time. We filled it from the creek, set it out in the sun, and let it sit. Except for one problem! Laura didn’t realize that the nozzle on the shower was open slightly, and we lost most of the water by the afternoon. Grrr… Laura in desperate need of a shower walked down to the creek and gave herself an icy creek bath. Not an ideal way to get clean, but hey, it worked. Camrin caved in too and bathed in the creek. We’ve only been gone a few days, and we are already becoming hardened mountain women. Ha!
Since our cooler doesn’t work that great we even cooled our whiskey in the creek. Gotta say, having a pour of whiskey next to a campfire that has been chilling in a mountain creek all day is as good as it gets. Did we mention we are quickly becoming rugged mountain women?
Our short stay in the Black Hills was really nice. We didn’t really know what to expect, but it was really pretty. The Black Hills are kind of like the foothills to the Rockies. Not too steep and jagged. Lots of tall pine trees and pretty wildflowers. The nights were a bit cold, but the daytime weather was perfect. We even got to meet a few locals who stopped by to ask about our tent. Most people have never seen a roof top tent before, so we get a lot of curious stares.
Thanks for reading our blog. Here are a few more pics from our stay.
Keep up the blog. I enjoy reading it and the pictures. You are doing what I have always wanted to do. I am very jealous. Have fun, be safe and enjoy yourself.