After months of planning, our family had our first epic National Park tour vacation planned for June of 2020. We’d fly from Philly to San Francisco, rent a car, and head north. We would tour seven National Parks over three weeks, and fly home from Seattle. Awesome.
Cue the Covid-19 pandemic. Through April 2020 we held onto hope that we could still pull the trip off. But by mid-May it was clear to us that boarding planes and sleeping in hotels was not happening for us that summer.
Lucky for us, we had pulled our 2020 Grand Design Transcend Xplor travel trailer from the dealership just one week before our world closed up shop on March 13th. We’d been enjoying driveway camp-outs while house-bound that spring. And so once our original vacation plans were officially cancelled, Mike suggested we *pivot* (heh) and pull our new home on wheels to South Dakota instead. And just like that – our first of many epic cross-country RV road trips was born.
That first trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota had the potential to make or break us as long-distance RVers. It made us – hook, line, and sinker. With our then three and six year old boys, we made lifelong memories that June of 2020. Bike rides, buffaloes, lakes, jeep tours, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave, the Badlands, and Wall Drug – it was truly the trip of a lifetime that would fuel our endless quests for cross-country road trips of a lifetime.
When planning our summer of 2024 trip, we knew we needed to return to the Black Hills and Custer State Park. Mike often quips “you can never go home again” whenever hoping to recreate the magic of an experience. Would round two of Custer State Park be as memorable as the first?
Yep. You can definitely go home again – especially if home is Custer State Park.
With only three days to explore the Black Hills on this trip, we were thankful to have a previous trip to guide our choices in how to spend our time.
Mount Rushmore
Our boys only had vague memories of our first trip to South Dakota, and the pandemic had made it difficult for us to truly explore Mt. Rushmore. So we took another drive up the famous Needles Highway to Mt. Rushmore. We decided to go in the evening this time, and we were so happy we did – it allowed us to tour the monument in the last hour of daylight, and then enjoy the lighting ceremony and nightly presentation that began at dusk.
We hiked the Presidential Trail that takes you up a bazillion steps (okay, according to Google, 425 steps), and gives you a view of the monument so close you can basically look right up the nostrils of the Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, and Washington. It’s definitely worth the time and effort to make the hike for the up close view.
Legion Lake
There are five lakes in Custer State Park open to public fishing, boating, and swimming access. On our last trip we enjoyed time at both Legion and Keystone Lakes. Keystone was hands down my favorite of the two. It offered a scenic hike around the the lake that was a big hit with our crew. But due to time constraints, we chose to spend an afternoon at the closer Legion Lake this trip, which is also beautiful!
Wind Cave National Park
Our family has now been to South Dakota and Wind Cave National Park TWICE, and the caves at Wind Cave have been closed TWICE. Sigh.
But we still made the most of our visit there. Our youngest completed the Junior Ranger program, we caught a great National Park Ranger talk about the significance of Wind Cave to the Lakota tribe, and read the Lakota Emergence Story. And we explored the Visitor Center exhibits in an attempt to try and recreate what an experience in the cave would look like.
Guess we’ll have to go back again if we’d like to go into the cave. Aw, shucks.
Keystone, South Dakota
I would describe Keystone, South Dakota as the boardwalk town of a nowhere-near-coastal town. If you’re looking for old time family photos, fudge, mountain coasters, zip lines, and unique chainsaw wood carvings, Keystone is the place to be.
Our crew was all about a day of adventuring, so we purchased the Ultimate Adventure Pass at Rushmore Tramway Adventures, and spent the majority of our day navigating the ropes course, repelling, tubing, zip lining, and alpine sliding. We had to drag our oldest off of the ropes course – he absolutely loved it. All four of us gave the experience a 10/10.
Custer State Park
After spending seven nights at the Game Lodge campground in 2020, we booked our site for the Grace Coolidge Campground just a couple of miles northwest of the Game Lodge for our 2024 visit. Custer State Park has so much to offer, we really wouldn’t have had to leave the park to experience an awesome three days.
We all took advantage of the walking and biking trail that connected our campground to the Game Lodge campground, and biked, walked, and ran on it daily. We took evening drives around the Game Loop in the park to see herds of buffalo and wild burros. And after the space being closed in 2020, we were excited to get to explore the Park’s Visitor’s Center – the highlight being all of us getting on a large floor scale to be told that – combined – our weight only totaled a buffalo’s weight up to his thighs!
We didn’t do much dining out this trip, and we didn’t make the time or effort to dine at the Game Lodge Restaurant, but we did eat there in 2020, and I would highly recommend a visit to the historic lodge and restaurant for anyone traveling there for their first time.
The Badlands
After checking out of our site at Custer State Park, we stopped for a second tour of Badlands National Park on our way east. On this trip we were able to spend time in the Visitor’s Center, and we were all especially intrigued at the fossil exhibit. There is an entire collection of fossils discovered by park guests. We went out to hike the Notch Trail with a renewed interest – maybe we’d be the next to discover something no one had unearthed before!
We had hiked the Notch Trail in 2020, and had no hesitation about revisiting the hike on this trip. The hike is about a mile and a half round trip, and the highlight (for me, at least) is the iconic rope ladder that hikers have to ascend – and then descend – in order to complete the out and back hike.
Driving west to east allowed us to drive through the National Park. The Badlands ranks up there in my list of favorite National Parks visited so far, namely because of the landscape. Otherworldly is the only way I can describe it. It feels like walking through a Star Wars set. Earth is wild.
Wall Drug
I would drive across the country every year – maybe more than once a year – for a maple donut and 5 cent coffee at Wall Drug. The place is just awesome.
We watched the dinosaur erupt in a steam filled roar, posed with the gigantic jackelope and buffalo, perused the MANY gift shops, and picked up some kitschy merch. Oh, and ate our donuts and coffee, of course.
As sad as I was to pull away from Wall Drug and continue our long trek east toward home, I found comfort in knowing that we will definitely be back. And as looooooong and barren as the state of South Dakota can be to drive – we knew we’d find all kinds of fun on our trip east.
