The Black Hills of South Dakota (2)

24-30th May: days 46 to 52

A sedate few days with no photographic evidence…

We moved campsite after 4 days in this area. Our next camp called Crooked Creek was a whole 4 miles from the one in the hills, much closer to town, and right on the cycle trail.  Moving day was a nice warm and sunny day so we decided to do not much else once we were installed. We had a brief foray into Hill City for coffee and got chatting to a very helpful gallery assistant called Lindsay . She had some great recommendations for eating and sight seeing which were duly noted. Then we loafed around in the sun all afternoon. At last a hint of summer.

One of the eating recommendations was an independent burger restaurant, Blackhills Burger and Bun in the next town, Custer. This has won national awards for its burgers and in the land of the burger, that must mean it is likely to be pretty darn good.  The aforementioned cycle trail is along an old railway line and links Hill City to Custer. A plan was hatched. We would earn our lunchtime burger feast by cycling there. The distance was estimated at about 9 miles by my travel companion, but was nearer 12 miles. This was an imperceptible climb for 8 miles during which we were toasty warm and exhausted, then a 4 mile freewheel downhill to Custer. By the time we arrived we were borderline hypothermic. (Not so summery today.) Lunch was worth it though. Truely spectacular burgers, with bottomless coffees to warm us up. The return trip was aided by full bellies and caffeine, and the 8/4 mile switcheroo on the incline/decline was much appreciated.

Our second eating recommendation was for another restaurant in Custer called Skogen. This has very recently been opened by friends of our gallery food advisor and is a bit different from the usual Mid-West fayre. This time we drove to Custer and had brunch in this small and charming place. Decked out more in the Kiwi style doing high end bistro/cafe food. Delicious and nutritious.

After brunch we drove out to an area called Jewel Cave National Monument. This is an enormous complex of caves, which despite only being about 4-5% mapped is already about the third largest in the world. We did a 1.5 hour cave tour which was pretty good but not a patch on the Lewis and Clark Caverns outside Butte.

The next day was pretty low key again. We cycled the 3 miles into Hill City and sat outside a restaurant with a never-ending pot of coffee watching the world go by. Wired, we got home for lunch before the rain started. That was pretty much it for the day, save for a brief foray out for a walk along the bike trail before dinner.

Sunday we drove into Custer State Park and drove the ‘wildlife loop’. A bit scanty on the wildlife to be honest, but there was some great scenery. The sky threw some thunder, lightening and rain at us again, and after travelling one wet unpaved road Big Dave was impressively/embarrassingly dirty. Between weather events we managed to squeeze in a 3 mile walk dubbed ‘Lovers Leap’. This did include a rocky precipice, where legend has it that 2 star crossed lovers leapt to their deaths. Seems a bit extreme. Just run away together. I managed to entice my Nick partway up the rock. No fear of him getting anywhere near enough the edge to be in danger of leaping to his end. His sweaty soles would have acted like gecko feet anyway. We stopped at at carwash on the way home, and returned Big Dave to a vague black colour.

The sun graced us with its presence for the whole the next day. Hoorah.  It was Memorial Day, a public holiday Monday. We avoided the crowds by doing nothing much but being sedately busy all day. Camping and boating: always something to be doing.

We left the next day via the camp site ‘dump station’. Not much needs to be elaborated here, but just to say that this is universally the recurring low point of the RV experience. This visit was particularly low. Enough said.

Next stop The Badlands…