Back-country camping in the Black Hills Forest

Now that we have camped four nights in a row, we thought it would be a good time to share our experience. We started it easy and chose a nice State Park in Minnesota, Killen Woods SP, set up our tent in a nice and breezy weather. There were a few bugs but all in all, pretty good experience. The next morning, we started the compact stove we had and even cooked breakfast: some oatmeal, tea and fruit. However, it took Chad about 20 minutes to get the stove started but again, that was our first time for a while.


Our second night was in South Dakota, in the Circle 10 Badlands campground: same camping experience but this time with a strong storm and tornado advisory. I can tell you you we broke the world record of the fastest tent ever set up! Eventually, the storm did not come our way so all ended well. For our third night, we decided to cook with our newly bought cookware and made a nice pasta dish: nothing fancy but this was our first "home cooked" meal since we left. It was just pasta but man, it was good. And Caroline was happy she could cook.


Finally, being in the Mt Rushmore area, called the Black Hills Forest, on a Saturday night, we had a hard time finding a campsite. This was not going to stop us: we decided to drive up a dirt road and just picked a remote place in the forest, parked our motorcycles in the grass and set up our campsite. No showers or bathrooms of course but this was true wilderness. We even heard some deer around our tent in the night but thankfully no Buffalo.


Mt Rushmore, an American icon

The story of this sculpted moutain is so interesting: it was carved for the sole purpose of attracting tourists to the area. Well, I can tell you it worked. You would probably have no other reason to go to this area but for this grand attraction but once you're there, it is so beautiful you don't want to leave. This is pretty much what happened to us as we started riding through the Black Hills.

A close encounter for Chad

The Black Hills National Forest is a magic area and a paradise for motorcycle riders. Small twisty roads with single-lane tunnels, timber bridges and plenty of shade provided by these big pines trees. And they smell so good, it is like riding through scented fresh air. As we rode, we entered the Custer State Park, where they have a big Buffalo herd. By the way, they are Bison not Buffalo but blame it on the French who confused everyone by calling them "Les Buffles", which are the big African animals that look a little bit like Bisons, and the name stayed and was ultimately Americanized (or as Caroline would say, distorted into) and became "Buffalo". So anyway, we were riding and this big bull Buffalo crossed the road in front of us. Chad absolutely wanted to take a picture so he stopped and started taking pictures of the big guy. Well, that was not much to the liking of Mr Buffalo and so he started charging Chad's mortorcycle, making strong grunt noises. Lucky Chad, he was fast enough to drop the camera in the tank bag, start the bike and get out of there quickly! Needlesstosay, the story made his day.