South Dakota - Day 9 - in Angostura state park

Angostura Recreation Area, Hot Springs

Monday, 9 August 2021

The campsite we had last night was not a good space for us.  For one thing, the site was canted sharply to the passenger side.  After spending days at the Hot Springs KOA on a very non-level site, I didn't want to stay in this one longer than I had to.  For another thing, there was a very bad smell here that seeped into the RV even with all the windows closed.  And for a third, the nice couple from Vermont camped across from us had 3 large dogs that weren't always on leashes, though they were very well behaved.  But we were so situated that I couldn't get my dogs out of the RV without their dogs and mine in full view of each other.  I had to ask them to put their dogs inside so I could take mine out for a bedtime walk.  They were very nice about it though.

That was last night.  This morning on our 2nd walk, I had to do some major maneuvering to avoid seeing those dogs, who went out for their walk while we were out too.

While I was walking the dogs this morning. I noticed that a much more level site hadn't been used last night, so I hoped it might be open tonight.  I called the office and they said, yes it's going to be empty tonight so go ahead and move over.  It was a surprising degree of relief to be on a relatively level surface again.

I noticed that bad smell at this campsite as well.  I think this particular campground is fairly new and I'm wondering if they've got a sceptic system problem.

Despite these hiccups, I liked the campground okay.  I had a really great view of the stars and saw the Milky Way for the first time in a while.  I'd heard that this week the Perseid meteor shower would peak and I wanted very much to see some shooting stars.  No luck while I was here, but the stars I did see were incredible.

There was a terrible bug problem, but at our new site we got much more breeze, which helped keep them at bay.  This new site didn't have much of any shade until late afternoon, but it did have a nice view of the lake.  And the campsite next door had a perfect one.  If you pitched a tent at site #17, this is the view you could see from your sleeping bag.

view from the tent pad at site #17

I've been seeing signs about the amazing diversity of plants in a historic grassland area.  I could see quite a few when I took this photo (below), but now they all seem to fade into a vision of grass.

The plant diversity is just not easy to spot for us non-botanists.

I had time to examine my TV and discovered that the screen had a bruise in it.  From that point - about 3" from the top of the screen - up to the top, the picture had a strange tint to it.  It was a little annoying but didn't cause much problems with the picture overall.

 

And that screw-down that didn't screw - it turns out the piece that held the arm in place had broken completely off.  I could have screwed the screw until Christmas and it wouldn't have tightened it down.  I ended up using the other screw-down screw instead, the one that I haven't used very often because it doesn't work very well and is a nuisance along with it.  But I had to hold the TV in place - I couldn't keep bashing it up against the cabinet.  But that makes it more of a nuisance as I try to make the screw screw down tightly.