Thursday, August 12, 2010

Driving through the Dakotas

You just never know. North Dakota has about half the number of people as Philadelphia. A gas station, a diner, and a post office constitute a town - and sometimes less than that - but this morning I stopped at a rest area along the way that actually had WIFI. Who knew?!
I caught up on a couple blogs and then headed south into South Dakota.

Well, I may have been wrong about considering North Dakota the least populated place in the United States. Today I drove almost all day down Route 1804 in South Dakota and saw only a few scattered houses and an occasional sign indicating a town in one direction or another from where I was. There were a couple really beautiful fields of sunflowers all in bloom and one of them beside a golden wheat (I think) field that was a work of art , but much of the land was just grassland over rolling hills and fields where the hay had already been cut and rolled into bales that looked just like the paintings of Monet in the Chicago Art Institute.
I almost stopped at a campground at 4:00, but it was so hot (102 degrees according to my car thermometer) and the campground so treeless and unattractive, that  I just moved on.

When I reached Pierre, south Dakota two hours later, I stopped in at a minimart to ask if there were a campground in the area. The nice young lady behind the counter pulled out a map and showed me three nearby campgrounds. I picked one at a state park a few miles away, and it turned out to be a good choice - fairly attractive campsites without too many mosquitoes (well, even a few is too many, so maybe I should just say not many too many) and a very attractive lake.
There was some heavy wind again at night, but it didn't last that long and my tent remained standing. When the wind died down, I got up and staked down the tent, but there was no more wind. I think I got the order wrong; I am probably supposed to stake the tent before the wind starts blowing ; I will try to remember this tomorrow night.

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