The Black Hills in Autumn

This year, we didn’t embark on a trip up north until August 22. Our younger daughter, who now lives in Rapid City, had been pestering us all summer about our travel plans. As a result, the Black Hills were our first destination this year.

In the post, “Newbie’s Guide to South Dakota”, we provided general information about visiting the Black Hills and South Dakota. This year our visit spanned 3 weeks, from Aug. 26 – Sept. 17 (Day of departure to NW Iowa.) By the time we arrived, school had started for many communities, so travelers with children had thinned out quite a bit. Full-time and reverse snowbird RVers were starting to leave the area too. RV travelers didn’t completely disappear, though.

We stay with family while in the Black Hills, and our time there is as much about seeing people that matter to us, as visiting tourist attractions. Not that the area goes into complete hibernation after Labor Day. It just depends on your interests. This is the time of year when you find out what the locals like to do.

Weather is the wild card. As we’ve mentioned, we’re long-term Texans, who once upon a time, lived in South Dakota and NW Iowa. Past experience has taught us that the transitional seasons can be tricky the further you get from the equator. We remember a year or two when our daughters had to trick-or-treat in snow suits, and others where Indian Summer lasted until November. Not even a jacket required for Halloween. Moving, and acclimating, to a region which only has two (maybe 2 1/2) seasons, can make packing for locations more than 1,000 miles north a bit complicated. Just like our late spring, early summer trip last year, the weather was hot at home while we were packing. Even hotter, actually. It’s typical to have temps over 100° at the end of August in Texas. An exact date wasn’t set for our return, so we tried to cover our bases by packing some warm weather clothing, long sleeves & jeans, and waterproof rain gear. This was not the first time we’ve visited in August, after Sturgis, either. Just a week later than usual this time. But we’re quickly learning past knowledge can only help so much.

The day we arrived in the Hills started off warm and sunny in Nebraska. As we traveled north on Hwy. 385, especially after we passed thru Alliance, we entertained ourselves by watching thunderstorms develop north of us and speculating where they were headed. Turned out they were part of a system we drove into, just past the junction of Hwys. 18 & 79 in South Dakota. We encountered wind and heavy rain first, then were hailed on before we got much further down the road. Visibility was poor enough that we were forced to pull over and wait it out, along with other motorists. The sound was terrible. We prayed nothing would be broken or dented. We got lucky. Fortunately, the hail stones stayed small, and the worst of it passed over in less than 15 minutes. (May have been less than 10 minutes. Seemed to last a long time.) When we reached the home of our uncle, water was rushing over the lowest point of his driveway, the ground was still covered with hail, and the temperature had dropped more than 30 degrees. This episode pretty much set the tone for the 3 weeks we spent in the Hills.

While there were still summerlike days, there were just as many which were damp and chilly. The daylight hours were definitely getting shorter, and deciduous trees were starting to turn yellow. During our last night there, the temp went below freezing. Our uncle joked the Bluebirds, who regularly visited his bird bath, would have to bring ice skates. Officially, the calendar still said it was summer. But as most of us know from experience, the calendar is lousy at predicting weather. Still, this is earliest we remember being given a taste of Winter. Besides a northern latitude, the Black Hills do have higher elevations which can make the weather more unpredictable. (Granted, they’re not as high as the Rocky Mountains, where snow above 10,000 feet is not unusual in July.)

Luckily, we were traveling at a time of year when purchasing warm clothing and accessories wasn’t a problem. We even got to take advantage of Labor Day weekend sales to pick up a couple of heavier sweaters, stocking caps and thicker gloves.

There was another issue that took some of the fun out of our visit; air quality. No, Rapid City isn’t known for smog like the major cities (yet). Big fires around Los Angles have been in the news most recently. But large blazes were burning in several of the western states this year. Wind carried smoke from these fires a few hundred miles to the east. Some days there was a faint brown haze. On others, it was heavy and the smell of smoke was actually noticeable. It was bad enough to give Kristal a sinus headache on a couple of days. And probably contributed to the sinus aggravation she found herself fighting as we began our return to Texas a few weeks later.

Though it wasn’t perfect, we still enjoyed ourselves. Kristal and Unc got to do some star gazing. They tried her new telescope on the moon and some favorite constellations/star clusters. She’d never been to Deadwood. We went there 3 times; once by ourselves & once with our daughter. The third trip back was to find a new pair of glasses which Karl had dropped from a pocket. A kind stranger found them and turned them into a store where he’d been sitting on a bench out front. (They may never read this, but “Thank you, kind stranger!”) We also paid a couple of visits to downtown Rapid City and Hill City. Then there was the scenic drive we took on Hwys. 16A through Custer State Park, 87 through Wind Cave National Park, and 385 down to Hot Springs.

Any resemblance to Cousin Eddie is purely intentional.

Overall, it was one of the most relaxing visits we’ve had so far. We’ll just make sure to pack some of our winter gear next time.