South Dakota

• Day 1 - Drove west on I-90 to Kennebec, SD. It was pretty much a long day of interstate driving. The Kennebec KOA campgrounds had been flooded to a level of about 3 ft. just 10 days before.
• Day 2 - We started our exploration of the Lewis and Clark trail by back-tracking slightly and visiting the Lower Brule Reservation on the Missouri River. We continued up along Lake Sharpe, which is this dammed-up section of the river to Pierre, SD (say "pier").
• Pierre is heavily sand bagged in the downtown area.
• A short distance north is the Oahe Dam, where water is being released at a higher rate than needed for generating electricity.
• On our way up US-83, we were forced to take a 40 mile detour due to bridge work, adding a good hour to our trip to Pollock, SD.
• Day 3, 4 - West Pollock Recreation Area is on Lake Oahe about 2 miles from North Dakota. We relaxed for an extra day here and put up our shelter because the bugs were a bit thick.
• The second day found us dipping in the lake right off the back of our site. The water was the perfect temperature; refreshing but not cold. Ellyn's water thermometer showed to it to be around 77F.
• That evening there were fireworks being shot up from the other side of the hill from us and so we enjoyed a little display to finish off our 4th of July. We also watched the NYC fireworks on delay from the west coast satellite feed.
• Day 5 - Headed north on US-83 to North Dakota, the seventh state on our trip.