South Dakota - Days 28-29 - in Indian Creek campground

Indian Creek campground, Mobridge

Saturday, 28 and Sunday, 29 August 2021

We were in Campground B, which was fairly small - only 39 campsites.  On Friday night, besides us there were only 2 RVs and 1 family in a tent.  On Saturday, the tent family was gone and only we and one of the other RVs were left - just the 2 of us.  On Sunday, 2 more RVs came in so there were 4 of us, which seemed odd since Sundays are usually very light.  And that was it.  I don't know how many people stayed in Campground A but I assumed there were a lot more than we had.  It looked like the other one had more trees than we did, but in ours, every campsite had a tree so we weren't complaining.

One reason the crowds may have stayed away was the weather.  We had terrible rain during Friday night, a sudden storm that started at 1:30 AM.  The rain was so heavy it actually sounded like hail.  It was complete with strong winds and lightning/thunder.  Actually, they've got some odd lightning up here.  I didn't look out but through the shades noticed the lightning was almost constant, like a cascade of lightning  There wasn't any thunder following the lightning, though, until suddenly we heard a sort of sonic boom.  It was as if the thunder couldn't keep up with the constant lightning and finally just built up such a head that it exploded into this boom.  After lying awake for a while with that middle-of-the-night storm, I dropped back asleep and didn't wake up until 4:45 - more than an hour later than my usual time.

When we went out, the rain had stopped but I saw lightning and heard thunder in the west and figured another storm was coming our way.  Sure enough, we again got that sudden rain, constant stream of lightning, sonic-boom thunder.  The thunder was so strong I could feel it inside me and it rattled things.  Even Lily got scared and started running around the RV looking for a hiding place.  I eventually found her in front of the driver's seat under the dashboard, as if it were an earthquake and she was getting under a doorframe.  I told her it wasn't an earthquake, but the sonic boom had given her different information so she didn't believe me.

Dext was too scared to lie down.  He sat under the table where Gracie had already crawled, and they both ended up shaking.  Of course I gave them both a CBD tablet and put Gracie's Thundershirt on her.  I don't know if those things help at all but I'm afraid not to do them.

In all that weather, the power to the RV got cut for a minute, at 2 different times.  It reminded me that I really do need to get a surge protector.  I've heard they're expensive, but so is rewiring the RV if the wiring gets fried.

I was surprised the tent family stayed much of the day Saturday.  They'd reserved their site for the whole weekend, but I noticed they were gone by Saturday evening, and it may be they checked the weather forecast and decided being in a tent for 1 night of storms was enough.  Beginning about 6:30 we once again got very heavy rain and wind strong enough to rock the RV.  It must have blown itself out by Sunday afternoon, because it was sunny and warm and there was no more rain.

On one of our walks, Dexter found a baby bird on the ground.  I'm sorry to say it was still alive and I pulled Dext away as soon as I realized what he'd found.  I think it was a recently hatched bird, and I'm guessing the strong wind might have blown it out of the nest.

I've been hearing a dove call that I'm not really used to, so I finally looked them up and realized what's here are Eurasian Collared-Doves.

Eurasian Collared-Dove

They're much bigger than Mourning Doves, and actually look a little like White-winged Doves without the white wing patches and with the collar.  These doves live year-round in about 35 states, including of course South Dakota.  Their song is described as "coo-coo-cup" in the bird book, which isn't what I hear but it does have the 3 syllables I hear.

I heard a bird that sounded a little like a very melodic Woody Woodpecker call. Woody sounded something like "heh-heh-heh-HEH-huh."  This bird, whatever it was, had the same rhythm but the song was really pretty.

There were gobs of locusts everywhere we went.  Actually, I thought they might be grasshoppers because I don't know the difference, but I've looked it up and decided these were locusts.  They could and did fly often, and some of them had very pretty wings - black with a yellow lower edge.  Several websites say grasshoppers have wings but they stick to hopping wherever they go.  Locusts are completely willing to demonstrate their ability to fly long distances.  These critters became Dexter's newest hobby.  He was fascinated with how they could be sitting on the ground, and then suddenly rise up into the air and fly away from him.  He kept trying to catch them.  It was pretty funny to watch him.

There were Russian Olive Trees here, and I was proud of myself for being able to recognize them and remember their name from that campground a few weeks ago.  Well, I knew they were an invasive species.

I had an internet signal here, but it was so very slow that there was no point in even trying to access my email or my blog program.  I tried to call both of them up and gave up after a couple of minutes.  If it took that long just to get the program on the screen, I'd never be able to do any work on them and certainly couldn't download any photos.  Instead I wrote posts in my computer's Libre program - 13 of them before I left the campground.  It's no substitute for my blog program, but at least the hard work of sorting through and writing about my notes and my photos and doing research on various points got done.  See, I could do the research and wait wait wait for results while I was writing about something else, instead of having the whole blog process being held up while I waited for something.  

I don't know why I couldn't get a stronger signal.  But the whole northwestern part of South Dakota is seriously underpopulated, and it may be there's not much signal because of not much need for it.

Campground B sits right on the Missouri River/Lake Oahe, making for some pretty views.

This is the inlet from the river to a small bay where the campground
had a boat launch to the right of this photo.

This is a close-up of that opposite side of the inlet above.
I was surprised at the height of the erosion from back when there was more water here.
You can see the eroded bank starts just below the solid line of trees.

This is looking downstream on the Missouri.  I was struck all over again about the accomplishment of the Voyage of Discovery. 
Paddling their heavy boats up this river that has a faster, more powerful current than the Mississippi.  Heading out where no Europeans were living and dealing with the sometimes hostile people who did live there. 
And then coming back to tell the story.  Incredible.

Early one morning when it was still dark, the dogs and I were walking along the river by these campsites.  The wind was blowing on-shore from the river, and it was strong enough to make waves in the current of water.  Feeling that wind and hearing the sound of those waves, it almost made me feel I was at the ocean somewhere.  All that was missing was the smell of saltwater and sea weed.