Alaska 2018 - Camping on the Missouri

 

June 10

First night – Camping on the Missouri

Monday evening about 5:00 we pulled into Indian Creek Rec Area on the Missouri River near Mobridge, S. Dakota. Here the widened river is good for fishing and the campground is adjacent to a marina and a bait store.

On our way, earlier in the day, we had stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S. Dakota. As a child, this was a fairly frequent stop for my family when we visited our Wolbrink relatives

in South Dakota every summer.

Our night’s stay at Indian Creek Rec Area will be remembered for the weather passing through. Our sleep in the Siesta was interrupted by a good old late spring midwestern thunderstorm. We had watched the dark clouds edge closer while we sat outside in the approaching dusk. The clouds were darkly ominous enough that we looked at the radar on weather.com before we went inside. It showed a bright red cel moving slowly toward us. Yep, an hour or so later, after we were in bed, the wind intensified enough to rock our boat and wake us up. The bright flashes of lightening, claps of thunder, and rain pounding on the roof of the RV kept us awake for a time, but all was well inside our little house. No leaks – not even from the skylight.

In the morning, after breaking camp, we drove through the town of Mobridge and across the Missouri River.  We turned off Hwy 12 to drive a couple of miles to the Sitting Bull Monument.  The Lakota chief was born near Mobridge and died there, too, so this monument marks his remains. It sits on a grassy knoll above the wide Missouri.  Nearby in the long prairie grass were 5 black chickens.  One of them cock-a-doodle-dooed.

This is beautiful country – these northwestern South Dakotan grasslands.  Especially this year.  More than ample rain has fallen in the past few weeks.  The grass-covered hills roll out from the Missouri River valley and are absolutely splendid in every shade of green, mottled with ever so subtle yellows and orange.