Our drive from Grand Tetons to the Black Hills of South Dakota went smoothly and we rolled into Comanche Park campground just before sunset, where we quickly realized there was no water spigot for filling our freshwater tank. This wouldn’t normally be a huge issue except for the fact that Christi had planned on showering here. Not the best start for this campground, but what made up for it was the fact that there were miraculously no mosquitos whatsoever, which was amazing. The camp host came by as we were getting setup and checked us in, and I decided to go buy some firewood from him. He was a nice guy and at his site I saw he had a huge 40ft fifth wheel that looked brand new which he invited me to tour. This was my first time really getting to see the inside of a huge RV like this (I’d only looked at photos when buying our RV) and it was eye-opening. It’s amazing what you can pack into a 40 ft. long fifth wheel with multiple slide outs. His full-size fridge, kitchen island, couch, armchairs, king size bed, 1.5 baths, and washing machine made it look like we’re roughing it in our Fun Finder. The host also gave me a tourist map of South Dakota and gave me some pointers on things to see, since we had realized on our drive that Wind Cave (which is the National Park we had come to the Black Hills to see) may not be open due to elevator issues.  Back at camp we whipped up a dinner and hung by the fire for a pleasant, mosquito-free evening in the Black Hills.

The next morning, despite the reports about Wind Cave being closed we still headed to the Visitor center to get the scoop first-hand. Sure enough, Wind Cave’s elevators were down and no tours were being given (the only way to actually see the cave). In a stroke of terrible luck, the other huge cave system nearby, Jewel Cave, was also having elevator issues and was not open. So, with our cave hopes foiled, we decided a driving tour of South Dakota would have to suffice.  Using our tourist map, we navigated around for the day to a few spots and through some pretty neat roads with pigtails and tunnels through solid rock, and some fields full of bison.

We stopped for lunch in Keystone, which is a neat little old-west style boardwalk town that was fun to walk and to watch all the motorcycles (and their riders) drive by or hanging around the town.  There’s a huge motorcycle rally in Sturgis, which was not far away, so there were a million motorcycles at every turn throughout our stay in South Dakota. I also finally found a cowboy hat I was OK with purchasing since it was only $15 (the Stetson’s we’d found so far in our search were all $50+, which I decided wasn’t worth it for the 3 times I’ll probably end up wearing it).

In Keystone, we saw a really neat woodcarving place with lots of amazing chainsaw carved statues as well as some live carving.

Next, we stopped at Mt. Rushmore, which is kind of neat but probably not worth the $10 charged for parking, especially considering the lookout was closed off for construction (which of course they don’t tell you when you enter).  

We did get some amusement from the parking lot, however, where we came to the conclusion that the parking attendant must enjoy sorting cars in the various lots by color when we parked among 40 other white cars.

We ended our driving tour with a stop at Sylvan Lake in part of Custer State Park, where we felt robbed when we had to pay $20 to go park for 30 minutes as Christi took a swim. She dcecided it was worth it though because she needed a shower and we didn’t have water at the campground. I was proud of her for her ability to embrace the roughin it lifestyle and survive with a cloudy dirty lake shower. Back at camp we set up our hammock for the first time on this trip and enjoyed a relaxing evening reminiscing about our adventures so far this summer while attempting to come to terms with the sad realization that this would be our last true campground for the trip and that our honeymoon is quickly coming to a close.

As we hit the road the next morning on our trek to Minneapolis, we drove past Hungry Horse monument, settling for viewing it from a distance instead of paying the $24 entrance fee to see another face carved into rock.  We also planned to drive through the Badlands National Park today. As I drove, Christi was catching up on her social media when she stumbled upon an update from her childhood pastor (who co-officiated our wedding) and his wife who are traveling the country in an RV for their retirement (free2bwheelin.com). To our surprise, she found that they were currently touring the Badlands. So, the Farrells generously offered to treat us to a quick lunch at the Badlands visitor center as we passed through. It was really neat catching up with them and sharing our adventures while hearing about theirs in our quick impromptu rendezvous.

Before meeting up with them we also stopped at Wall Drug, which is a super random touristy store/café/restaurants that take up an entire block in the middle of nowhere with a giant Jackalope (just look it up).

For dinner, we stopped at the one and only Corn Palace, which is another super random touristy stop that’s essentially a sports arena/concert venue that’s covered in murals made from corn cobs. It was weird, but neat.  

We actually ended up eating at a Mexican place down the street after briefly checking out the “palace”. We finally rolled into our KOA in Minneapolis around 1:30AM, setting a new record.

For our day in Minneapolis, we had a slow start catching up on some sleep, showering, and doing some laundry. When we finally made it out of camp we headed to Mall of America, which is apparently the biggest mall in America. Despite being the epitome of American consumerism and the complete opposite of a National Park, it was neat to see and we enjoyed wandering around the massive place and seeing the full indoor amusement park smack dab in the center of the mall (complete with roller coasters, log plume, and various other full size amusement park rides).

Instead of waiting in line for one of the roller coasters, we opted for a short “5D” show that had no line, which was actually pretty neat. After Mall of America, we drove into downtown Minneapolis for dinner at a neat restaurant Christi had found called Hell’s Kitchen (no relation to the TV show).

The restaurant is located in the basement of a building and is decorated with a dungeon-type feel with waiters full of tattoos and nose rings adding to the ambiance. The setting was neat, but it was also one of the tastiest meals we’ve had all trip, so if you ever visit Minneapolis we highly recommend it.

After dinner, we took a stroll through the renowned Minneapolis sculpture garden, which was just weird. Call me unrefined, but to me I just don’t see why pillars of concrete blocks in an X shape is worthy of being called a “sculpture”.  In reality though, despite being funky, there were some cool sculptures that I could appreciate, like the horse that looks like it’s made of sticks, but is actually cast and colored metal. The huge blue rooster and the spoon/cherry fountain were also very strange but neat at the same time.

Back at camp, Christi crawled into the depths of our trailer to pull out KingDomino so that she could get whooped 4 times in a row before calling it a night (ok maybe I let her win once).