Bad Lands/Black Hills/ Yellowstone Vacation

RedLionCookie wrote:
I'm starting to plan our summer vacation and I'm looking for advice/recommendations. My wife and I are in our 50's and it's just her and I and the dog. We live in PA and I'm a high school teacher. My wife works in the insurance business. I obviously have more vacation time than she does.

Here's my rough plan. The dog and I are going to leave Pa on Sunday June 30th and head west.

My wife will catch a flight and catch up with us in Rapid City on Wednesday July 3rd. I've heard the rodeo in Belle Fouche on the 4th of July is really nice. We are planning on attending that. After that we don't have any specific plans other than we want to visit Mt. Rushmore, The Bad Lands, The Black Hills and then move on to Yellowstone.

I will put my wife on a plan to head home on either Friday the 12th or Saturday the 13th. Not sure if she will fly home from Rapid City or Salt Lake.

So I'm looking for recommendations.
How much time should we plan to spend in SD before moving on to Yellowstone?
Would you recommend we stay in one campground in SD or should I plan on moving once or twice?

Where do you recommend we stay in SD?

What is the best way to see Yellowstone? I know that is vague but if you can give me some ideas I would appeciate it.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Dave

I have been living here in the Black Hills for 23 years, and still haven't seen everything there is to see here.

1. Do you boondock, or do you want full hookups?
2. How much time do you want to spend in the Hills and Yellowstone?
3. Do you like caves?
4. Do you like fishing?
5. Do you like watching wildlife?
6. Do you like gambling?

The Belle Fourche rodeo is highly regarded, and on the 4th of July Ellsworth AFB normally does a flyover with a B-1B bomber. They also usually do a flyover of the reservoir.

No one has even mentioned Spearfish Canyon, which the state is considering making a new state park. It can take anywhere from 1/2 hour just to say you were there, to a day, actually exploring. Spearfish Falls are a must see in my opinion, and most never see them, they don't even realize they drive within a couple hundred feet of them. This is about a half hour away from Belle Fourche.

When it comes to Yellowstone, we don't really care for Mammoth, but absolutely love Norris Geyser Basin. And we love to boondock, and usually stay at the Madison Campground, but there are no hookups.