Traveling Through the Dakotas

Eggerts Landing Corp of Engineers

Valley City, ND • August 24-27, 2022

You wouldn’t know it, but we were actually on a lake front campsite here. There was a winding path down to the lake behind our site. This was a nice little secluded campground. It was so far out in the middle of no where that we just stayed at the campground and entertained ourselves with a little biking and kayaking for the three days.

Eggerts Landing Corp of Engineer, North Dakota on Lake Ashtabula

We enjoyed a bike ride peddling down gravel wind turbine service roads. It was amazing being up close to these monstrous power makers which we’ve only seen at a distance. Standing below a non-spinning one we heard a motor click and it began to spin above us. All around the wind turbines were farmlands.

We had a fun bike ride through farm lands and wind mills.

We got up close!

Dave did a paddle to the dam and back.

This picture was taken at the campground swim beach. It is blue-green algae which can be harmful to humans and pets. I was happy to see no one swimming and glad I decided to sit out the paddle Dave took. We’ll see if Dave lives! 😂 I do love the striking blue-green colors though.

Wild Canadian plums grew in this park and we passed this tree many times sampling the sweet little nuggets.

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Sandy Shore State Park

Watertown, SD • August 27-29, 2022

It was a nice surprise to be right on the beach at Sandy Shore. Unfortunately when we arrived was the calmest the wind and water were for the entire two days. It’s a large beautiful house lined lake but one of those that we feel is just too gigantic to kayak even if the wind cooperated.

Sandy Shore State Park, South Dakota on Lake Kampeska

Sunset behind our camper

We did a 16 mile peddle around the lake powering through the wind of 10-20 mph with up to 25 mph gusts. (Definitely one we wouldn’t have done without e-bikes!)

A wee bit windy on Lake Kampeska. No kayaking here for us!

We visited (Terry) Redlin Art Center Museum in Watertown, SD. He was named American’s most popular artist many time in the 1990’s. His paintings were often pictured at twilight. The entire three story museum is his paintings and sketches throughout his lifetime. It was free and made for an enjoyable afternoon.

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Lions City Park

August 29-30, 2022 • Vermillion SD

This was a nice little free city park. It even provided 30 amp electric! Thank goodness because it was pretty hot here. This might have been the most ‘downtown’ we’ve ever camped. Right across the road is a car dealership and Tractor Supply. This was not a destination stop, but a means to ‘get on down the road’.

We had gotten in early enough to take a bike ride. We looked on Trip Advisor and found a couple of places to ride. Spirit Mound was seven miles down a road which had a nice wide biking shoulder on both sides. There was a gravel path through the prairie and up the mound. We looked for a ‘no bicycles’ sign and peddled up. The top of the mound had views for miles. Spirit Mound is part of the National Historic Lewis and Clark Trail. It is one of the few place that it is known from their journal that Lewis and Clark stood exactly there. Lewis and Clark related that the Otto and Yangon tribes believed that the mound was occupied by little people who shot any human who came near.

After the Spirt Mound we biked the Vermillion River Trail. We ended up riding 17.5 miles. One of those rides where the wind was blowing against you both ways! Both places were fun bike rides, but I wouldn’t make a special trip here for either.

Spirit Mound

We parked the bikes and walked the last little bit

You can see the path and the road we biked through the prairie

Our next stop is Prairie Flower COE in Polk City Iowa