Fall 2019 Black Hills Camping Trip

The photos in the gallery below were taken during my Fall camping trip at Hart Ranch Resort near Rapid City, South Dakota and my activities in the surrounding Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Mind you, even though Hart Ranch is a big RV resort, I do tent camp there in one of their tent sites. But, the facilities, people, and security there cannot be beaten and the entire Black Hills area is within a fairly short drive, so it's a great place to go camp.

Everything is packed and loaded, and I'm ready to head for Hart Ranch!

I have arrived at Tent Site 49 and have started getting the tent ready to set up.

Here you can see the main tent body standing on my tent site.

And now the rain fly has been added and the tent is complete. I have been sleeping in a Big Agnes Flying Diamond 8 starting this year and have found it to be a very sturdy and dependable tent. It takes the wind that I sometimes get in Rapid City, and it has kept its contents dry.

Here you can see inside the tent once I have the carpet put down.

Here we have a view of my campsite at the end of the first day. The tent, kitchen canopies, and a little kitchen equipment have all been put up. I'll finish up in the morning...

The next day dawned beautifully, and it was time to finish up with assembling the campsite.

And now, the site is complete. All of the kitchen equipment has been added and I'm ready to get at the enjoyment of a fine camping vacation. I have two EZ-UP canopies, one is an older commercial canopy and one is their newer Endeavor canopy with two sidewalls. I must say that the EZ-UP Endeavor is one seriously tough canopy...it's a little stiff to set up with one person, but it takes wind and weather a lot better than any other of their canopies that I've used over the years. I have an older Camp Chef Pro-90 three-burner stove which will probably be replaced one of these days. For high wind days, I have a two-burner Camp Chef Everest stove, which performs superbly even in windy conditions with the wind shades around the burners. I use several Camp Chef Camp Sherpas for storage, with two of them staying in my camping gear all the time with equipment that is permanently part of my camping setup, and the third staying in my house and getting loaded with equipment and ingredients that are shared with my home kitchen. I also use a Bass Pro Shops Deluxe Camp Kitchen, which replaced the Cabela's Camp Kitchen that I used to use. The Bass Pro Shops kitchen, while it has less usable counter space, is much more durably-built than the Cabela's model. And finally, I have a Weber Q1000 grill. My aunt and uncle bought one a couple years ago for use with their RV and liked it, so I walked around the campground one day looking at everybody's grills and found that a very large percentage of the campers at Hart Ranch were either using this grill or one of its bigger brothers, so I figured it must be pretty good. I bought one when my last grill rusted out and I haven't regretted it one bit.

And, I no more than got my campsite put together when the weather told me that I was just in time. This is the Black Hills, and we can get some interesting weather around here. This is the view of a nice thunderstorm off to the west from the campground.

That storm ultimately missed the campground, going past to our north. However, the outflow winds from it definitely made my flags stand out straight.

Here you can see my site prepped for more weather. I have the kitchen canopies lowered and (though you can't really see it here) double-anchored on most corners for added wind resilience.

Here you can see my camp kitchen in action cooking breakfast. The coffee is on, and the sausage is cooking with the other skillet ready for eggs when the sausage is finished.

Sausage and eggs, cooked in virgin coconut oil. The breakfast of champions!

And here we have the finished product for breakfast.

The mornings at Hart Ranch can be exceptionally beautiful, and this one definitely fit that bill.

And, the evenings can be pretty nice, too.

One of the things that I enjoy about camping is cooking up some really great meals. I often joke that I eat better when I'm camping than I do when I'm cooking in the kitchen in my own house, but it's not necessarily much of a joke. Here we have grilled wild-caught sockeye salmon with grilled zucchini and a serving of quinoa with artichoke hearts and roasted peppers. In other words, typical camp supper.

I may have forgotten to mention that, not only do I get some great meals while camping, but they come with a great view, too!

Sunset from Tent Site 49 at Hart Ranch Resort near Rapid City, SD

Here we have the inside of my tent ready for me to crawl into bed. You can see the Cabela's Outfitter XL cot with the Thermarest DreamTime XL pad, the Camp Chef Camp Sherpa (my camp "dresser"), the Bass Pro Shops recliner, the console for my Davis Instruments Vantage Vue weather station, and the Goal Zero Yeti 1250 power pack inside the tent. All in all, it makes for a pretty nice tent experience.

Morning runs and bike rides come with a great view around Hart Ranch. This view is from one of my morning bike rides.

Here is another great view from a morning bike ride.

And another view from a morning bike ride.

Here is the view as you ride your bicycle into Hart Ranch at the end of a nice morning riding session.

Here we have a nice grass-fed sirloin steak and some home-grown zucchini courtesy of my cousin Carol on the grill for lunch.

Just looking at these flags as they catch the sunlight, it really is pretty neat how they almost do "glow" when the light hits them right.

Another great camp meal. Sirloin steak, grilled zucchini, and cottage cheese.

Time for a little campfire action with the Cabela's recliner and a great book to read.

There were a lot of dragonflies at Hart Ranch this year, including this red one.

Time for an evening stroll along Hart Ranch's walking trail

All in all, this is a pretty nice trail around the eastern and northern perimeter of the campground .

Here's a nice view across the valley from the campground entrance as I came back into the campground during my evening walk.

There are plenty of RVs to be seen at Hart Ranch. Here's a view down one street of them as I was out and about for the evening.

One simply must have top-notch coffee while camping. Here you can see my Porlex hand grinder, Kruve coffee sifter, AeroPress, JetBoil, coffee cup, and, last but not least, home-roasted coffee beans. There simply is no better way to start the day.

Here you can see a nice view overlooking the softball diamond, fenced pet exercise area, and paintball course at Hart Ranch.

Also, Hart Ranch has a nice volleyball court, pool (fenced in), and kids' activity building.

Hart Ranch also has a couple nice playgrounds, one of which is shown here with the basketball, tennis courts, pickleball courts, and a picnic shelter in the background.

There were a lot of rabbits at Hart Ranch this year. One of them wandered into my campsite and hung out for a while.

Just to be realistic, the weather at Hart Ranch is not always ideal. This morning's bike ride was a bit on the foggy side.

View of Devil's Tower taken from a distance

Close-up view of Devil's Tower

I learned that rabbits really like apple peels.

In fact, they are quite fond of apple peels when they wander through your campsite. It might take them a minute to decide to go try it, but eventually the snack seems to win out.

Sunset on September 2, 2019 from the center of the tent site area at Hart Ranch Resort near Rapid City, SD. For the complete, high-resolution version of this picture, go to http://www.jazweb.us/images/Sunset2-Panorama.jpg

Sunset on September 2, 2019 from Tent Site 72 at Hart Ranch Resort near Rapid City, SD

A person eating grain-free can still enjoy a great hamburger. Here I'm trying out Outer Aisle's Cauliflower Sandwich Thins on a couple hamburgers. I must say, they work pretty well and taste great as a bun replacement.

View of the clouds on September 1, 2019 from Tent Site 49 at Hart Ranch Resort near Rapid City, SD

My parents came out for part of the trip so that Dad and I could ride a couple sections of the Mickelson Trail. They brought along some lamb chislic that they had gotten from a friend, so we tried it out. It tasted pretty good!

Well, this is never what you want to see, and certainly not what you want to have happen. Unfortunately, RVs sometimes break down, as these folks' RV has done here. Unfortunately, it appears that AAA may have slightly overestimated the size of the RV when they called a towing company to come and get it. But, I'm pretty sure that truck is big enough to haul off that RV, though...

A photo from the ride my Dad and I did on the Mickelson Trail from the Crazy Horse (Mountain) Trailhead to the Pringle Trailhead

After Mom picked Dad and me up from our first day of bike riding, we decided to go visit The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs. This is a view of the dig site at that location.

A view of the dig site at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs

A photo from the ride my Dad and I did on the Mickelson Trail from the Dumont Trailhead to the Deadwood Trailhead. This photo was taken from the Dumont Trailhead.

A photo from the ride my Dad and I did on the Mickelson Trail from the Dumont Trailhead to the Deadwood Trailhead

I'm getting ready to bake a honey applesauce cake in my Dutch oven. Here you can see the cake batter poured into the parchment-lined oven.

The bottom layer of coals is ready on the Dutch oven table.

Here the Dutch oven is on the bottom layer of coals. I'm using a 12" regular Dutchie here, so I'm using the +/- 3 method, with 9 coals under and 15 coals on for about 325 degrees. I then added a coal on each side to get up to 350 degrees.

Here I've got the coals on the Dutch oven and we're cooking from all sides.

The honey applesauce cake is done cooking, and so far it looks like a winner.

Here I've turned the cake out of the Dutch oven onto parchment paper on the oven's lid, which will make for a little better presentation as well as making it easier to frost the cake. This cake recipe has been modified from the recipe that I originally received from Lawrence Heald so that this recipe is made grain-free with no refined carbs. I use coconut flour in the cake, raw unfiltered honey in the cake, and erythritol instead of powdered sugar in the frosting.

The cake has been frosted and we're on our way to dinner with family in Rapid City.

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Fall 2019 Black Hills Camping Trip

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