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2025

Spots in Dakotas, Missouri, Corn Belt

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  • Bennett Spring Campground
  • Missouri State Parks, Lebanon MO
  • Fourth spring in a row! This one has a fishery. It's very spread out. Long drive up the hill to pick a site, drive back and check in, then later drive back to fish or walk or just see the sites. Swimming not allowed in the park, but just outside and across the bridge is river access where you can swim. Despite the reliance on driving, a very nice place. People were catching lots of fish!

  • Pony Creek Campground
  • Mills County Park, Mills County IA
  • A quiet little spot. Five miles of gravel road, then take a right into a little hollow at the back end of which are some county buildings and a loop with 12 campsites. The Visitors Center is quite nice. Nice balcony to hang out on last night, and pretty interesting inside the next morning.

  • The Bay Casino Campground
  • Army Corps of Engineers, Mobridge SD
  • Allstays calls this Indian Memorial, an ACE campground. The signage is in the standard ACE font and color, and it just has the distinctive well-engineered style, so I am calling it ACE also. If so, then clearly it has been leased back to the tribe. It's on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Nice place!

  • Lane Spring Campground
  • Mark Twain National Forest, Rolla MO
  • Third spring in a row! The campsites are nice, but the place is very remote and I didn't feel good about my neighbors, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might've. There looked like very nice sites next to the river at the end of the loop (next to the sketchy people)

  • Crab Orchard Campground
  • Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Marion IL
  • real nice find! Crab Orchard is a pretty big place, with four campgrounds. The other campgrounds have full hookups for the big boys and cost more. But E Loop is the oldest and has become the bastard stepchild in the corner. Electric only inside the loop, no hookups outside. Its bathroom is kinda gross, but hey, $5 for overnight and a shower ain't bad.

  • Fort Buford Historical Site
  • North Dakota State Parks, Williston ND`
  • 12 miles south of US 2, the east-west highway I've been driving for five days. Totally worth the detour.

  • Kankakee Campground
  • Kankakee State Park, Kankakee IL
  • large and pleasant, had to check in with the host

  • Harmonie Campground
  • Indiana State Parks, New Harmony IN
  • Way overpriced and has stupid rules. The park borders the Wabash River, but the campground itself is miles from the river. There is a public swimming pool that is an additional charge on top of the camping fee.

  • Devil's Kitchen Lake Campground
  • Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, Carbondale IL
  • If it were 30° cooler, this would be spectacular, but it's just too hot tonight. It's set up as a tents-only area on a little peninsula on the lake, but there's no one else here, so I'm hanging in the parking lot. The bathroom (with shower!) seems to be of recent construction and is very nice. The stifling heat and stillness became kinda neat after a while...

  • Falls City Campground
  • Falls City City Park, Falls City NE
  • Very pleasant city park with a pond, shade trees, trails.

  • Silver Mines Campground
  • Mark Twain National Forest, Fredericktown MO
  • Signage is very poor ==> hard to find. I ended up going to the river level loop with hookups and the camp host who directed me up the hill to the non-hookup sites on the bluffs. Nice big sites. There's a trail down to the swimming hole by the old dam. Very cool!

  • Leach Park
  • city park, Spencer IA
  • very user-friendly, downtown right across the bridge, and next to a rec complex with bike paths, tennis courts, swimming pool, etc.

  • Pikes Peak Campground
  • Iowa State Park, McGregor IA
  • Beautiful location high on the bluffs above the mighty Mississippi. Nice set of trails with awesome vistas on the river bluffs

  • Round Spring Campground
  • Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Eminence MO
  • These federal parks along the Current River are national treasures. I had a great time here tonight.

  • Lambert's Cafe
  • private business Sikeston MO
  • Cafe conjures up an image of a modest little restaurant. This place is HUGE! A multiple tour bus handling, multi-roomed dining hall and entertainment complex. I was kinda put off by the style, but the servers were nice, the food was good and plentiful, and it was fun! As part of their hillbilly hospitality thing one is welcome to sleep in the parking lot! For all my snobbishness about it, it was actually very pleasant. Everything about my night and morning in Sykesville was very nice.

  • Lake of the Ozarks Campground
  • Missouri State Parks, Osage Beach MO
  • There is NO check-in procedure here, only check-out. Odd. Just pick a site, do your thing, and there's only one way out, so pay at the station when you leave.

  • Spencer Park Fairgrounds
  • Spencer City Park, Spencer NE
  • Turned out to be a delightful stop! A large grassy area in the back corner of the fairgrounds. $10 for hookups, $5 without. A one person bathroom with a shower. Perfect with on one else here, probably less so if it were busy.

  • Cottonwood Lake
  • city park, Merriman NE
  • Very low tech, just pull the van up to a picnic table and hang out

  • Sheridan Lake Campground
  • Black Hills National Forest, Hill City SD
  • I am in Thumper Loop! A lovely, very well maintained large campground. The area is thick grass, but a wide area is mowed around each campsite. Very pleasant place to be out of the madness of Black Hills traffic.

  • East Totten Trail Campground
  • Army Corps of Engineers, Coleharbor ND
  • Right on the lake! Spacious, level, wide-open sites. Stupid reservation-only Army Corps sign-up. Bar and Grill 400 yards up the hill.

  • Big Spring Campground
  • Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Van Buren MO
  • Used to be a state park, but they gave it to the Feds for some reason. [After my experience the next few days with state parks, I can see it. The layout is quite similar to Bennett Springs and Roaring River.] There's a loop with hookups and a small loop without, which for some reason was where everybody was. I was the only person in the huge expanse of the main loop. My site had pretty good shade in the morning, most didn't. Showers are a short drive down the road, but that's way better than no showers.