We packed up and left Custer, SD, late in the morning Tuesday to head over for a one-night stay just north of the Badlands National Park in Wall, SD. After a couple hours, we pulled into Wall and found our campground and a line of motorhomes in front of the office. Once checked in, we proceeded toward our site down the maybe once long in the past gravel road. It was just dirt now. We drove till we came to the back of another coach blocking the road. It appeared the two RV’s that were at the office when I pulled in were given the same #6 site. Not a good sign. But once the office fixed it, we got to our empty site, we deployed the living space and hooked up.
Since we were only here overnight, I headed over to the Badlands right away. Kathy begged off on this drive to stay with Baxter who got really sick. [We called the only vet in the town and he was out doing some annual check of the cows so no one was available.] It was only about 8 miles south of Wall, so I filled the car with gas and took off. The Badlands must have been a sight when travelers heading west had just ridden a thousand miles of green prairie and came upon this desolate place.
I stopped at the first viewpoint and noticed a huge wall of black clouds far in the distance touching the ground, probably back near Rapid City. I walked down to the viewpoint and snapped a few pics, some with the storm in the distance. I then headed further into the park and was about halfway thru when the radio squawked with one of those emergency broadcast tones. Then they started talking about a severe thunderstorm. Thankfully not a tornado warning, but 75 mph winds and quarter-sized hailstones. They stated everyone should get under cover now.
It was just east of Rapid City and moving west at 35 mph directly toward the Badlands. I made a U-turn and headed back home as quick as possible to button up the coach. But as I got closer to Wall, I could see the storm was going to pass a few miles south of the town, and just then it started to sprinkle on the windshield. But that was all i was going to see this afternoon.
I was kind of bummed I only got to see the top half of the park and won’t have time in the morning to drive the rest as we need to make it to Sioux Falls tonight so the pups can get groomed tomorrow morning and its a bit of a drive.
Of course we had a rude awaking later, around midnight the wind started howling and the coach started being buffeted around. Then came the thunder and lightning. I jumped out of bed and opened the laptop to view the NWS Conus weather radar. There was another big storm coming thru. Luckily its biggest red area was south of town, but there was a lot of red and yellow almost upon our location. I immediately dropped the TV and moved the recliners back into their stowed position so I could bring in the slides quickly if it got any worse or if it started to hail. I went back to bed to watch the lightning from the little window and quickly fell back to sleep as it appears the worst was already over as my head hit the pillow.
