Carlson Ditch

Woke up to an almost clear sky with a light wind. Still cold, but so nice to see the sun. Think last time we saw sunshine was the day we drove into Medora, 3 nights later we are driving out of Medora in sunshine! Regardless I really did like our time here and in the park. I love visiting places that don't have so many tourists, however many attractions are closed. But the national parks usually are open and being able to drive slowly through a park and just meander is so nice!

Stopped at the Painted Canyon one more time to see it in the sunshine. Still a great overlook, and on one of the grassy plains we could see a small herd of bison. Just very picturesque!

Headed south on Hwy 85. Weather looks like it is warming up pretty much all over, but wanted to go south to try and avoid snow.

Stopped for lunch in the city of Buffalo. Just another tiny little town that has seen better days. Saloon No. 3, not sure where the other two were. Like most of these small cafes/diner/bars there is usually one or two in the kitchen, and one waitress. Took a quick picture of their town park, which was very well done for such a small town.

The drive from Buffalo into Spearfish was awesome. Still rolling plains, but they definitely had more snow fall, so eveything was dust with snow and with the sunshine, sparkling! We saw lots of cattle, very few trees, and two different herds of prong horn antelope. The landscape really was beautiful, traffic very light, sky blue with clouds. Loved this drive. BUT oddly enough the snow seem to have greater and greater accumulation as we went farther south. We finally realized (berms on the side of the highway) that it had been deep enough that the highway had been plowed, although the road condition was dry and clean at the time we were driving.

I wanted to stop and see the High Plains Western Heritage Center (a 5 state collection) that is located in Spearfish so we checked into a KOA here. Ooops! Snow was really alot deeper in this area than we thought. The clerk said they had over a foot of snow yesterday. We just did not give thought about conditions AFTER inclement weather. The forecast for this area was in the 40s for today, but I never checked to see what the conditions had been the day before!? Yeah the sun was shining, but that just made it a wet soupy mix of snow and mud!

But we got water, and their showers were functioning. After struggling to get the RV in place, we took the jeep and headed to Walmart to get some wool socks. And after rummaging through my storage bins I found my Ugg snow boots! Am a happy camper again!Read more