My Chevrolet Express van Class B- camper
I have been camping in my 1990 Chevrolet Silverado Blazer 2-door for the last 20 years. When I removed the back seat there was just enough room for a 3/4 sized (Hollywood, as some people called them)...
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This week we visited another state campground that we have never been to yet, Hartford Beach State Park.
This park is as far east as you can get in South Dakota. The other side of the lake is Minnesota.
Again my wife chose a great campsite that had a lot of shade.
I had a great time around the lake taking pictures. Even got to use my walking stick as a monopod.
My wife enjoyed the shore and hiking on the trails that were wide enough to walk two abreast.
The whole area where we camped reminded us a lot of Sica Hollow State Park in South Dakota with its abundance of greenery and springs coming out of the ground.
This is Equisetum, also known as “scouring rush” or “horsetail.” It grows wherever there is a lot of water.
You can’t start the morning without a good cup of “campground” coffee. I boil the water over the campfire and pour it through an old fashioned drip-o-lator that I got at the nearly new store.
One of the pools along the hiking trail had “water strider” bugs in it. The actual bug is to the left of the oval shadows. The shadows are made by the dipping down of the water’s surface tension. The little white spots are where his legs are actually pressing into the water.
Blue damsel flies and dragon flies were abundant. While we were watching a beautiful dragon fly on the grass of the shore, a leopard frog leaped at him. Not sure how the dragon fly got away, but he was almost frog dinner. Neither Nancy or I had ever seen something like that before. I would have loved to have gotten that shot with my camera.
When we walked close to shore, the ground literally moved with frogs jumping all over the place. It almost made you dizzy.
We spotted many caterpillars all along the trail.
This Monarch butterfly posed for me while I shot him from many different angles.
On the trails we saw a lot of dead trees with all kinds of woodpecker holes.
After talking to some of the park staff we learned that there were pileated woodpeckers in the area. This is about the farthest west they are found in our state. Not having ever seen one before, we started looking for them.
The pileated woodpeckers were quite elusive, but I did manage to get a rather fuzzy shot of one off at a great distance. I think I was lucky even getting this good of a shot.
This is what they look like with a clear picture.
On the way home the dead tree two miles east of Roscoe was loaded with cormorants.
This park is as far east as you can get in South Dakota. The other side of the lake is Minnesota.
Again my wife chose a great campsite that had a lot of shade.
I had a great time around the lake taking pictures. Even got to use my walking stick as a monopod.
My wife enjoyed the shore and hiking on the trails that were wide enough to walk two abreast.
The whole area where we camped reminded us a lot of Sica Hollow State Park in South Dakota with its abundance of greenery and springs coming out of the ground.
This is Equisetum, also known as “scouring rush” or “horsetail.” It grows wherever there is a lot of water.
You can’t start the morning without a good cup of “campground” coffee. I boil the water over the campfire and pour it through an old fashioned drip-o-lator that I got at the nearly new store.
One of the pools along the hiking trail had “water strider” bugs in it. The actual bug is to the left of the oval shadows. The shadows are made by the dipping down of the water’s surface tension. The little white spots are where his legs are actually pressing into the water.
Blue damsel flies and dragon flies were abundant. While we were watching a beautiful dragon fly on the grass of the shore, a leopard frog leaped at him. Not sure how the dragon fly got away, but he was almost frog dinner. Neither Nancy or I had ever seen something like that before. I would have loved to have gotten that shot with my camera.
When we walked close to shore, the ground literally moved with frogs jumping all over the place. It almost made you dizzy.
We spotted many caterpillars all along the trail.
This Monarch butterfly posed for me while I shot him from many different angles.
On the trails we saw a lot of dead trees with all kinds of woodpecker holes.
After talking to some of the park staff we learned that there were pileated woodpeckers in the area. This is about the farthest west they are found in our state. Not having ever seen one before, we started looking for them.
The pileated woodpeckers were quite elusive, but I did manage to get a rather fuzzy shot of one off at a great distance. I think I was lucky even getting this good of a shot.
This is what they look like with a clear picture.
On the way home the dead tree two miles east of Roscoe was loaded with cormorants.
