Long, long, over due. Can’t believe it took me so long to write about the last leg of my trip all the way back in September! Well, South Dakota and Wyoming both stole my heart, and I really want to go back and spend a week or two in both states. I took over 200 photos, don’t worry, I’m not adding them all here! Some of these won’t edited, but I have so much to catch up on.

After leaving the KOA in Wisconsin, our next stop was Mitchell, South Dakota, where we would stay at our first non KOA campground this trip, a private campground called Lake Mitchell Campground.  We got a prime spot right on the point of the lake, and it was really serene. Lake Mitchell wasn’t that far off our route back home, a few miles from the 90, I would stop here again for sure.

 

They had boats to rent, I regret not renting a canoe, but I was not sure we had enough time before the sun set, and was a bit disoriented with the time change, and driving so much. Of course I could’ve just looked at my phone and all the info would’ve been there:)

Would love to go back and go hiking, as this was just a stop over, but the walks around the campground were pretty decent and it had quaint walking paths, down to a beach, and around the campground.

We spent our free time taking photos of old signs and silly photos around the Downtown Mitchell. They have a whole building made of corn, called the Corn Palace!

We woke up and were on the road super early the next day, the 90 seemed to have a lot of roadside attractions, we stopped at 1800 town which is dog friendly!

 

We had reservations at the Deadwood KOA, being a geek for the show Deadwood, I was just super excited to see this little town too!  The KOA manager upgraded our site for free and put us in a really nice spot near the office and restrooms. This KOA is nestled in the Black Hills and breathtaking to walk around. The Kamp K9 also had agility equipment.

Even more awesome was that there was a shuttle from the Deadwood KOA to downtown Deadwood and it was dog friendly!  Tho we did walk some of the George S. Mickelson Trail near Deadwood, I geekily spent most of our time walking around the town and reading all the historic signs.  Can’t wait to go back, I would like to do more of the George S. Mickelson Trail, and also hike at Spearfish.  It rained again, and our little budget Coleman tent held up just fine.

Sadly we left the next morning.  We hit a crazy windstorm in Wyoming, the GPS had us going down a 2 lane highway as well, which always freaks me out. The highway seemed to trace the route of the Oregon Trail. At one rest area, there was a beautiful walk to Independence Rock, but it was so windy every single person turned around.

It had dropped to the high 30’s by the time we got to the KOA in Lyman Wyoming that I wanted to stay at, I had a 30 degree bag, but, that is the low end temp with base layers, 40 is the actual comfort zone, plus it was still crazy windy, and I realized that it was a possibility it could drop below 30. Camping was out of the question to me, and luckily since it was off season the cabins were actually less than any of the KOA campsites at the previous places I stayed.

The next day we  we drove through Utah and we got some great photos of the Salt lakes off of 80 at a rest area right before Nevada

Then back into Nevada, where we camped at the Winnemucca KOA, tho we were there just 12 hours, the Kamp K9 was really nice and had dog baths!  We drove all the way back home to The Bay area from here.  And that’s it!  Now I can get to the reviews about our budget camping gear, and the East Bay and Tahoe hikes that I have done since then.

Happy Trails!