Legion Lake Campground, Custer State Park

On Friday we made the 111 mile journey from Keyhole State Park in Wyoming to Custer State Park in South Dakota.   The air is a little more humid here, but the temps are about 10 degrees cooler.  I must say the Black Hills are a more scenic surrounding than the area around Keyhole SP.

This is a small campground of about 20 sites, all with 50 amp electric; but no water or sewer hookups on site.  The reservation web site says there is fresh water and a dump station here.  Yes for the fresh water; no for the dump site.  Fortunately we had dumped when we left Keyhole.  We pulled over here with a nearly empty fresh water tank as we are already a “tad” overweight, and not hauling 800 plus pounds of water is the right thing to do.  However when we arrived, we discovered the fresh water spigot was about 45’ from the nearest place I could get the camper.   Fortunately, I met a fellow camper coming out of the men’s bathroom who was kind enough to lend me his 25’ hose.  Backing into the site was pretty much a snap, not much adjusting was needed.  The sites are paved and almost flat; we had to lift our curb side by the height of one yellow pad.  The rate here is $24 a night, a little over our $20 target, but well worth it.
 
                     Campground entrance.                                          Legion Lake is across the highway.   
 
          Campground is set in the trees.                                                        Our site.
We were surprised at the number of pop-up tent campers on the site.  A lot of these were occupied by young families with little kids.  In some cases, there were multiple families with tents set up in addition to the pop-up campers.  Struck up a conversation with a guy from Illinois.  When I learned he was from the Chicago area, I commented that 90% of my time in Chicago was at O’Hare Airport making connections.  Turns out he is an Air Traffic Controller at O’Hare.   That started a conversation about air travel and frequent fliers, which I used to be one.

This morning we struck out with a goal of finding a hiking trail before it got too hot.  About 10 miles away is the Creekside Trail, a paved (my favorite kind) walkway about a mile or so long paralleling a stream.  At the end of the trail there was an area with some cabins and a large meadow.  In the middle of the meadow a bull buffalo was munching away on the lawn.  He was quite a ways away and facing away from us, so I decided it wasn’t worth it to take a picture of a buffalo’s butt.  On the way back we checked out another trail head and also went to check out a cabin that was the home of Badger Clark, a Poet Laureate who died in 1957.  The cabin is open to the public about 3 days a month and this was not one of those days.  The cabin is right on the Centennial Trail; a trail that passes through most of the Black Hills.  This trail is not paved (Rosie’s favorite kind) and goes through the woods.
 
           Me and the pooches on the trail.                           Rosie and Sammy at the end of a bridge.
 
                The stream along the trail.                                   The cabin of Badger Clark.
 
                 My kind of trail.                                                       Rosie’s kind of trail

It is the last day of June, so a Full Timer expense report is due.  Campground Fees – $561; Diesel fuel while pulling the 5th wheel – $265; generator gas and propane – $56.28; Truck/RV service and repairs – $241; Satellite TV and Radio - $102  Total $1,225.28.  Average campsite cost per night – $18.70, a little under our target.  We feel pretty good about those numbers.

Thanks for stopping by.

Updated July 1st with corrected expenses.