Day 74: Oacoma, SD

Stop 44 / State 27: Oacoma, SD

We had a longer trip than usual today, 229 miles. One thing that I've been intending to mention is the increasing frequency of large motorcycles. The Sturgis motorcycle rally starts up in a few days and the motorcycle world is moving in that direction.

As I mentioned in the heading, we're in South Dakota now. Just so you know where Oacoma is, it's kind of a suburb of Chamberlain (which you might find on a good map). The 2 towns are on opposite sides of the Missouri River.

I mentioned yesterday that the terrain was getting flatter and flatter. Today, it finally reached flat. Our GPS reports the elevation and we were surprised to notice today that we are higher at home than we are here. Here are some pictures that Kristen took of the flatness.

We don't know what this cow sculpture was all about but Kristen really liked it.

When we were almost to our destination today, we came to a rest stop that included a Lewis and Clark point of interest so, of course we pulled off. The rest stop was at the site of Camp Pleasant, where the Corps of Discovery spent a week on their westward trip in 1804. They stopped their again on the return trip in 1806..

You might miss it in the picture above so here's a better shot of that sign that was in the background.

And here's the view of the Missouri from Camp Pleasant. We didn't realize it at the time but our campground is on the opposite bank, just to the left of this picture.

Here we are in the campground, right on the banks of the Missouri. Well actually, I-90, which passes about 100 feet in front of our truck, is right on the banks of the Missouri. In the picture, that's the Missouri right between the pavement and the distant bank.

 

I had a bit of a panic this afternoon. We're going to be meeting with my sister Stacy and her husband Jack in Custer, SD on July 30th for 2 nights. That particular reservation needed to be made by phone and no email confirmation was received. Kristen was looking through my hand written reservation documentation this afternoon and asked "Why does this say that it's for 1 night?". I looked at it. That's what it said but it also showed the per night charge and a 2 night total. Then I noticed that it said "7/29 for 1 night". I obviously needed to call the park but we've had no cell reception since we hit South Dakota and the pay phone next to the park office has been vandalized. I ended up borrowing a cellphone from the woman at the desk in the office. The park in Custer had no record of my name for the 29th or 30th and my reservation number didn't exist. I ended that call with a promise to call them back after I'd done a little bit more research. I discovered that the reservation number that I'd written down for Custer was also my reservation number for Yellowstone. Fortunately, I've logged all of the important data into a spreadsheet. Checking that, I came up with a different confirmation for Custer. I called Custer back. The new number was good and there was no problem the reservation was exactly as it should be. The reason that they couldn't find the reservation the first time was that they had misspelled my name. Whew!

 

-J-