I thought I saw a Bluebird this morning, and I may have because the bird book says the Eastern Bluebird is here during breeding season, which I guess this still is. And we heard a fish jumping in the stream that runs alongside the campground, which I learned later was actually the James River again. (“It’s everywhere! It’s everywhere!” A reference to “Chickenman,” of course, and the Wikipedia entry is worth reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/Chickenman)
This campground was full of chipmunks, and I saw 3 on our 2nd morning walk. Very fortunately, Dexter saw none of them – even though one was about 2” from his nose. Really. He was busy sniffing something else and just didn’t see it. (And a heartfelt "Thank goodness.") I was interested to note that the chipmunk saw Dexter, of course, and seemed stunned that a dog would suddenly be so close to him, so he didn't move. Odd sight.
Right across from my campsite was where a bridge once was – the remains are still quite clearly there. I found that interesting because Google had told me an alternate route to the campground from the one I took led across that bridge. Glad I didn’t choose that one or I might still be wandering around trying to get back again.
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| That's Dexter's head on the right and the non-bridge straight ahead. "Narrow Bridge" indeed. |
It was a warm, humid, damp, sticky morning – not weather I expected to find in South Dakota. Because we didn’t have a long drive today, I didn’t get us on the road until almost 9:00.
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| today's route |
Right across the road from the campground entrance, I saw a historical marker titled “Fisher Grove,” which was the name of the campground. I looked it up and here’s the link to what the marker says. https://www.hmdb.org/Fisher-Grove
For some reason, when reading this marker I got suspicious of the sentence, “A sequence of events, including the move of Drifting Goose and his band to a reservation, brought the white man in greater numbers,” and looked it up. “A sequence of events” scarcely scratches the surface of what happened. This leader, Drifting Goose, was so amazing that I can’t believe he isn’t as well-known as Sitting Bull. Maybe it’s because he didn’t bother to pick fights but instead used his brains to outwit the encroachers. Maybe being outwitted by Indians isn’t part of history that the (usually white) history book writers want known. His is an interesting story and you can read it at this link. http://aktalakota.stjo.org/Drifting-Goose
I passed through tiny Doland, pop. 180, and quickly came to a construction zone. I was first in line and the young flagger was all alone and came over to tell me to wait for the pilot car, as this was 3 miles of construction zone. I asked him about a line of hills I saw along the eastern horizon, saying I’d driven over there but didn’t remember any hills like that there. He said he was from that area and said, “When you get there they don’t look like hills.” Distance can provide perspective, but perspective can also be relative.
Driving through this construction zone reminded me of a similar situation when the refrigerator had started beeping at me, and that reminded me that it’d been a few days since I last saw the “check engine” light on. I don’t know whether to be reassured that it was indeed a short that had caused it to light, or worried that whatever the problem was was still a problem but the system had just reset itself so the light wouldn’t show, as that one mechanic had told me sometimes happens.
I saw a whole flock of wild turkeys by the road.
I saw a herd of cows being accompanied by a lot of Cattle Egrets. Except the bird book says they aren’t here. The only egrets that are supposed to be in SD are Great Egrets (and I’ve seen plenty of them). It says there’s a little strip where Cattle Egrets breed running south through eastcentral North Dakota that bleeds into northern South Dakota, but otherwise they aren’t in South Dakota at all. But it also says that they might show up irregularly during breeding season as far north as southern Canada, so I guess that’s what I saw. Except that sure looked like a lot of birds for being “irregular.” Anyway, there they were.
And I saw hills, cooperatives, scattered farm houses, scattered small towns, acres of corn and soybeans, occasional lakes and ponds with various duckies.
I passed a business labeled Mayfield Truss Inc., and it was closely surrounded on the 3 non-road sides by soybeans. Like they just carved out a small rectangle from the crop field to plunk the business down in.
We passed through Clark, pop. 1,139, and De Smet, pop. 1,089. De Smet bills itself as Little Town on the Prairie, because it was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I knew I’d already planned to come back through for a longer visit later in the week, so I just passed along the road.
A little farther along, I turned off to head to Lake Thompson Recreational Area. I’d read that it was a nice area, we were ready for a break, so I decided to take it here. I didn’t take a photo but it is a pretty lake. It’s one of the largest natural lakes in South Dakota, with 44.6 miles of shoreline and more than 19 square miles of surface area. It’s home to a variety of fish species and so is very popular with fishing enthusiasts, of which this state seems to have many.
I noticed that it’s got a sandy beach at the swimming area, and saw a kingfisher along the shore, but I knew they wouldn’t allow dogs there. Instead, we found a section of the campground that was deserted and stopped there to walk and have lunch. The park seemed like a really nice place, and I was sorry I hadn’t included it in my reservations.
I passed several farming towns: Lake Preston, pop. 737; Arlington, pop. 915 – half the vines in a nearby vineyard were covered with some kind of mesh, so I’m guessing the birds or the deer like grapes; Volga, pop. 1,768.
I’ve been noticing that crops all over the state seem to be going through the maturing cycle faster than I would have expected, and wondered if that was related to the drought this state, as so many others, is going through. Or more likely another aspect of climate change – the warmer temperatures.
I passed a plant labeled South Dakota Soybean Processors, so that is soybeans I’ve been seeing.
And then I came to Brookings, pop. 22,056, home of South Dakota State University, whose mascot is the Jackrabbits. Unusual. (I think the Gregory Gorillas is a more intimidating mascot.) Once again, Google’s instructions led me somewhere that wasn’t at all where I’d intended, and I got a nice tour of several residential areas of town before I got found again.
My goal was the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum, which I found. But by then the day had gotten pretty hot, so I turned on the generator to run the AC inside the cabin while I was gone. But once inside the museum, the greeter told me I’d need to go back to the RV to hang a parking permit tag on the inside mirror. He said if I didn’t, I ran an extremely good risk I’d get ticketed by the campus police, who were bored because school was out of session and they didn’t have enough to do. By then I was hot and tired and had already taken the dogs out for a short walk, so I was even hotter than I would have been, and I just did NOT want to walk back to the RV, hang that stupid tag, and walk back again. I really wanted to see what was in the museum – I’m curious about agricultural development in various parts of our country – and I had to stand there and weigh my priorities. I didn’t want to miss the museum, I didn’t want to walk in the sun, and I didn’t want a ticket. I finally decided against the museum, but that’s somewhere I’ll go whenever I get back this way. What I could see of the exhibits looked interesting and well-presented.
Stupid to be so fussed over that situation, but it really was hot and humid outside.
As I drove through the campus and then on out of town, I saw an SDSU swine research unit, an equestrian training center, buildings for dairy science, agricultural research, dairy research and training (are they training cows?), a sheep unit, and an agricultural experimental station. It’s pretty clear where the emphasis is at this school.
I passed the turn for Bruce, pop. 204, “A Honey of a Place to Bee.” This slogan is in honor of the nearby Adee Honey Farms, which I passed. Online it says this company is “one of the largest beekeeping operations in the world,” and the facility I saw looked like that’s true. It was a lot bigger than I’d have expected a honey plant to be. And from all that, you can deduce that each July they hold the Honey Days in Bruce with your usual small town festival events.
Speaking of bees, I found this article online about the health of the bee population in the US, and it’s not a pretty picture. Everyone should read this to understand the pervasive importance of bees to our continued existence (i.e. our food supply). https://rapidcityjournal.com/as-bees-die-off-sd-beekeepers-face-industry-s-darkest-days
And then on to tonight’s campground. Fortunately, this time there was someone at the entrance, who gave me a map of the campground and directions to my campsite, which weren’t actually very good directions but still better than none. This is a heavily wooded and quite large campground, and I was lucky and snagged a site right by the bathrooms and near the entrance, which gave me access to places to walk the dogs where there were fewer people, aka dog owners.
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