Day 20: Newcastle, WY to Custer State Park, SD

Today's plan was to ride about 45 miles up into the Black Hills to meet my sister and her family at a campground in Custer State Park. I was anxious to see them as its been a couple years. I tried to get Marc up early, but had no luck. We ended up getting out of town around 9 AM. Its really hard to get moving in the morning - lots to pack up and then a hearty breakfast. It all takes time!
Our headwinds from yesterday were still around to greet us today. Oh joy! Headwinds and climbing are a fun combination. It was a scenic and hilly ride up to Custer. We arrived in town around 1 PM and stopped for a quick bite to eat. After lunch I sought out the Bakery Diner for a slice of pie to go. So with a name like - Bakery Diner - one would assume that they would have pie, right? Nope. The waitress suggested a place way on the other end of town for pie. Oh well, hopefully I'll find some pie at dinner.
After running a few errands in town, we had 12 more miles to the campground. It was a sunny beautiful day, while we were in town, but as soon as we left town the skies darkened. Unfortuately for us, Val picked the most remote campground with a huge hill climb to get to it. As we were climbing up the steep hill, the storm front moved in and it started to drizzle and lightening lit up the skies around us. All I could think was "If I get hit by lightening, its Val's fault!"
At the crest of the hill, it not only started to rain harder but hail as well. What luck! Fortunately we only had about 3 more miles to go, so we rode it out. When we approached the campsite, Val & Dan were no where to be found. The huge circus tent that they put up was all open and the rain was getting inside. We quickly zipped up all the windows just in time for a huge downpour. At least being in their tent is way better than ours. We have a tiny backpackers tent that you can barely fit 2 people. This tent is huge! You could do cartwheels in this tent. We joked that we could set up our tent inside this tent for some privacy.

Tomorrow we are going to visit The Badlands via Pawlak's motorcoach. Looking forward to it!