The journey home, day 3. Yet again I weathered a big thunderstorm in my van at night, this time near Ogallala, NE. I don’t have any kind of weather radio so when I see ominous skies I check my weather app. Sure enough, a mild forecast was suddenly severe thunderstorms. It was a wild one, with hail this time, but I don’t think I have hail damage. And it was earlier this time so it quieted down by 10 and I actually got a good night of sleep.

While I was in my campsite in the evening 4 men pulled in next to me in a quad cab truck. This park was weird in that it allows day use of campsites, and these guys didn’t appear to be camping. I was worried at first that they came to the lake to party, but they just wanted to fish. And mostly, they wanted to fish from my campsite frontage. They worked their way closer until they had rods set up the length of both our sites and beyond. When it started to storm they all took down their rods and ran to the truck and jumped in. I thought they’d wait it out and then go home, but when I woke up they were still there. I guess 4 men slept in the cab of the truck!

I covered a lot of miles today, despite a side trip to Badlands NP. The road through the Sand Hills of western Nebraska was probably the emptiest place I’ve ever been. There were broad grasslands with cattle grazing but only a handful of houses in hundreds of miles.

As I grew near I realized the next turn of my gps put me on a (very muddy) dirt road. That’s so annoying. I had to find a new route and luckily it didn’t require backtracking. It did send me through an Indian reservation, which was closed to the public and they had checkpoints to track people entering and leaving, to make sure they didn’t stay.

And, I saw prairie dog colonies! Huge ones! Lots of them! Fat little prairie dogs scampered about, and road kill carcasses littered the highways. But they were so cute!

There were just too many people at Badlands and I didn’t stay long. I was going to explore the Black Hills area, but there is enough to see there to warrant an entire trip, and I didn’t feel I could make a dent in exploring without adding a lot of miles to my long trip, so I saved that for another time. The drive was dramatic!

I made it to Spearfish, SD tonight. I am camped in the most wonderful city campground. It’s large and clean and seems pretty popular, and many sites are along a creek. It’s in town, a mile walk to the historic downtown area. And, next door to a historic fish hatchery. I spent a long time there wandering the grounds and reading interpretive signs.

Tomorrow I’ll be driving through Montana. I’m in states I’ve never been to now, and I’m really enjoying the new scenery!