We find ourselves in River City RV Park, in Chamberlain, South Dakota, in site 91.
Pluses? It’s a new park with great owners and reasonable prices. Cons? It’s on the Missouri River, so the thousands of mosquitoes that we brought with us now have a comfortable and wet place to further torment us!
The park is located on the top of a hill, with views of green rolling hills.
The trip from Yankton was uneventful, yet in many ways beautiful.
We joined Interstate 90 in Mitchell, South Dakota and headed west into the heart of the midwest. The weather forecast was for rain, and we did encounter a bit, but for the most part we just enjoyed the scenery!
We moved from a very humid and wet environment to a much more hospitable one. The many flying insects that we enjoyed a hundred and fifty miles east have been keeping a low profile except near the Missouri River.
Yes, we’re near the river yet again, and this time we’re also surrounded by Native American reservations. The Creek, Crow, and Sioux have reservations around here and we decided to explore. The Missouri River is wide and rolling through here, just a few hundred miles from its headwaters in the northwest part of the state.
Fishing and water sports are huge here, supported by a Corps of Engineers dam and powerhouse a few miles upstream from Chamberlain. On the way to check it out we drove north on county highway 50 and turned west on Bureau of Indians Road 4, and slipped into Fort Thompson, population 1,300, on the Crow Creek Reservation.
The Corps has built a very attractive rv park at the base of a dam called the Left Tailrace Campground.
Leaving the sad Crow Creek community of Fort Thompson, which has a small casino but no grocery store; a building that is rarely visited by anyone other than locals that may not be able to afford it and a gas station that sells soda, beer and candy, we headed south toward Kennebec, SD. By this time, Sasha was just about bored to tears!
The road south was again through Reservation land, this time Sioux, and was nearly the loneliest road in America.
Surrounded by thousands of acres of corn and soybeans, separated by more thousands of acres or rangeland with even more thousands of cattle, we got lost and turned onto a road with miles and miles of repaving work.
Eventually we arrived in the thriving community of Kennebec, population 281 at last count. Grain elevators and trucking companies support local farmers.
The school busses must have a lot of territory to cover on a school morning!
The interstate back to Chamberlain gave us another look at the tremendous farms that cover southern South Dakota.
We turned off into the town of Reliance, SD, hoping to get something to drink, and found another grain elevator town of 128 residents. Ok, on to Chamberlain. One more day to thoroughly explore this extremely active area. Did I mention that there is a concrete trucking company next door to the park…..?
The only gas station in the area with diesel fuel at a decent price is in Kimball, SD, about 20 miles east of Chamberlain. Since the concrete batch plant was no fun, and Chesters Chicken downtown was still using yesterday’s grease, we drove to Kimball to get fuel and a soda. Big day in South Dakota!
Kimball is another small farm town, but with a population of over 500, ranks among the largest of small towns in the state! The main entrance into town has a sigh that startled us, since the nearest health facility is 20 miles west!
After putting 60 gallons of fuel in the truck, we tried to have lunch at the only restaurant in town, Ditty’s. Ditty’s is a combo gas station, convenience store and cafe. We have had great times in small cafes, talking to the locals and enjoying some down home cooking, but Ditty’s was just a bit too homey for us. Four unoccupied tables, and a counter with help yourself fried chicken was more than we could handle, so we stopped in the next small town, Pukwana, population about 230, to see what was shaking there.
Not much.
Pukwana claims to have one of the fanciest mayors’ houses in the area. Didn’t see the Mayor…
So, there you have it. Our focus this trip is to explore places that we’ve passed by in years past, and we have largely been successful, but we’re ready to move on. We have remarked that for the most part, these small towns appear to be deserted. There are cars, nice green lawns and kids toys, but never a soul around. Spooky.
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