On the road

 The Missouri River

On August 24th we departed Iowa with the intention of doing an "overnight" on the road; this was a first for us in the motor home. We knew we could not make the distance from our Iowa campground to our reserved campsite in South Dakota in one day...not and arrive before dark. We had decided to drive half the way and find some place to spend the night....Walmart parking lot, a rest area or a truck stop. The plan was to complete the two day trip on the following day, thus arriving at our latest campground on the 26th, the day of our reservation. Anyone see a problem here? More on that in a bit.
The day was just beautiful. The sun was shining. the sky was blue and all systems were "go." I speak for myself when I say that my knowledge of geography of states north and west is embarrassingly deficient, so I was surprised to see how quickly the landscape changed as we traveled the few miles from Sioux City, Iowa into South Dakota.The difference between the landscape on one side of the Missouri and the other was astounding.
I loved seeing the unending fields of corn and beans in Iowa, but  the now gently rolling landscape of the cattle farms with mile after mile of recently shorn fields and row upon row of big round hay bales and fields of sunflowers were equally striking. When riding along in our "big rig" we don't make quick stops to snap photos, waiting until we get to a destination to hop in the car or golf cart to get a closer look and photos of the countryside. That means that while we thoroughly enjoy the sights

Endless fields of sunflowers

along the way we usually don't get pictures unless I am able to snap a quick shot out the window.

Sunset due to fires in Northwest :(

Everything went well and we stopped a couple of times, once for fuel and once to give the driver lunch and a much needed break.
 As evening approached we began looking for a place to stop...to no avail. We were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The few rest stops we had seen did not allow overnight parking, there were no Walmarts around and while fuel was available we hadn't seen a truck stop for miles. On we drove and finally came to the very small town of Prosho, SD, population 514. Finally, utilizing the GPS, we saw that there was a Cenex station some distaance ahead which might be a truck stop.The Cenex was not exactly a truck stop, although there were several big rigs parked out back. This station had diesel (check), a place to park (check), a combination convenience store, a restaurant, clean restrooms, a bar and gaming room (check). What more could you ask for?

We fueled up then parked. We walked through the convenience store towards swinging doors straight out of a western movie and sat down in the bar. There were a few people at a table but no one behind the bar. We waited about ten minutes, looking around, wondering if the place was closing, when a fellow at the next table said, "Oh, she's out in the kitchen fixing our food; she'll be back in a minute." Then he came over and we had a great conversation until the barmaid came back. Seems he did some sort of farm work and told us come January it was too darn cold and he and his wife took off for Florida for golf and some sun.
We ordered beer and sandwiches and enjoyed watching a bunch of locals drift in. This was the Cheers of Prosho; except for us, everybody knew everybody else's name.
We probably would have slept well that night but for the truck next to us; engine on, engine off, engine on, engine off.....
The next day we got up, got ready and left for the second portion of this leg. Again, beautiful countryside and a good trip until...I pulled out information regarding our reservation at Rushmore

Our first glimpse of the Badlands

Shadows. Oops, we were about to arrive a day before our reservation, at one of the most popular campgrounds, the week before Labor Day. Now, we had found it necessary to adjust our schedule to get these specific dates at this specific campground and we'd been told they were "full." Really big oops.
Ah, but luck was with us and on calling Rushmore and explaining the situation we were pleased to learn they would allow us in on the 25th. Tonight we would sleep comfortably, full hookups in a beautiful campground.