Hello! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? The past month or so has been busy with several one-night and two-night stays, several stops with no Internet connectivity and a fun two weeks with our “West Coast Family”, all of which left either no time for writing or just me too tired to process photos and write. I’ll be trying to catch up over the next couple of days (we have some more one-nighters coming up as we travel east) and this post will cover several short stops we had over a week’s period back in June after leaving Metropolis, IL and the Superman Celebration.
Thursday, June 15, 2023 we left Metropolis, Illinois to drive about 250 miles to Graham Cave State Park in Danville, Missouri for a three-night stay.
When we arrived the gracious hostess told Cindy, “If you don’t like your spot, we’re full up all weekend so save yourself a trip back up here to ask for another site.” I’m pretty sure she meant well, but she certainly could have phrased it more courteously.
When we arrived at our site we saw why she said what she said. She’s probably had lots of people get to their site and be unhappy that they are right on top of each other. Sites were no more than six feet apart and kind of overlapped in the way they were laid out. The map was a “not to scale” joke as it showed lots of room between sites that just wasn’t there. In addition the site was very unlevel. This is a campground we won’t be returning to unless there is absolutely no choice in the matter.
Friday we hiked 3.6 miles round trip over a VERY rough trail to the Graham Cave and back again. We took time to rest while there and took several photos. I’m glad we got to see it. It very much is a cave and not a cavern. The opening to it is fenced off to preserve archaeological finds and continued digging. Artifacts already uncovered reveal that people occupied the cave 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. When you walk through the 386 acres of scenic park land you are walking in the footsteps of hunter/gatherers who lived in the area’s caves during the ancient Dalton and Archaic periods.
Saturday we were worn out from the previous day’s hike so we just vegged out most of the day. The forecast for Sunday morning was rain so we brought in the larger slide-out and went ahead and hitched Nomad to Voyager so we wouldn’t have so much to do outside the next morning.
Sunday it ended up not raining. We topped off our fresh water tank and hit the road for Weston Bend State Park in Weston, Missouri around 10 am. It was a four-hour drive and an hour of that was pretty heavy rain. But as Cindy said, both Nomad and Voyager could use a bath. We arrived around 2:30 and since we were only going to be there for one night, we didn’t unhitch.
Monday morning, June 19, 2023 we left Weston Bend State Park around 11:30 to drive another 4 hours to Lewis & Clark State Park in Onowa, Iowa for a two-night stay. There was no one at the check-in office to give us a map or directions to our site and the “directional” signs were not accurate or helpful. We went down a wrong road trying to find our campsite before finally finding the correct road and site number. We had a back-in site that was fairly level and there was a nice amount of space between sites. Tuesday morning we took Bella for a walk down one of the trails that run parallel to Blue Lake and saw some awesome plant life, flowers and birds.
Wednesday morning we left Lewis. & Clark State Park around 10:30, taking time to dump our black, gray and galley tanks and to flush our black tank. We also topped off our fresh water tank. Today was a long 290 mile drive to Left Tailrace Campground in Fort Thompson, South Dakota, so we stopped about halfway to eat, re-fuel Voyager and break up the six-hour drive. We arrived a little after 4 pm to a pull-through site (YAY!) which was asphalt and level for a two-night stay.
Left Tailrace Campground is a USACE site that sits on the shore of Lake Francis Case on the Missouri River just below Big Bend Dam. The campground has 81 electrical hookup sites with 30 and 50 amp pedestals and 12 non-electrical tent sites. Each site has a standard picnic table and most, including ours, had a nice shelter covering along with a fire ring. Due to it’s location, it is a popular site for boaters and those who like to fish and offers large boat ramps for those who want to explore Lake Francis Case.
Thursday and Friday mornings we enjoyed walking around the shoreline of the lake and getting some beautiful photos of the Big Bend Dam. After our Friday morning walk it was off to our next stop, Custer State Park.
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