Newton Hills State Park - Canton, South Dakota

 

We drove past the entrance to the horse camp as it is not labeled horse camp. We drove to the state park entrance and were told to turn around and go back a half mile to this entrance.

There is an RV dump at the park entrance, so if you need to dump your gray and black tanks, you have to go into the state park, dump your tanks and then come back out to go to the horse camp.

Each campsite gets one large pen for your horses. There wasn't anybody using the campsite next to us, so initially we put Lennox in that pen and Mercutio in the pen belonging to our campsite.

Wheelbarrows are provided for each pen. You are instructed to fill the wheelbarrow and someone will come by each morning to dump it for you.

Later when another camper took the spot next to us, we set up our portable corral next to Mercy's pen. Lennox got to stay in the portable corral and he was quite happy.

We were expecting some showers, so we put up our shelter in Mercy's pen to give him some cover from the rain.

We had electric hook-up only. There was a single water pump for the entire camp, but we had enough hose to get water from the pump to our pens.

Our Winegard worked fine, so we had internet.

The campsites were shady and nice. 

There are about 10-12 miles of trails, so not a lot of riding. But the trails are easy and flat in a pretty wooded area with lots of wild flowers.

I put Mercy in the lead and he behaved really well for all three rides that we did.

It seems like the tune-up work Ari did with him helped immensely. He was a lot calmer.

He spooked a few times - once at a squirrel and one time an apple fell down from a tree right in front of him and that surprised him. However, he didn't just take off and start running away. Instead, he startled and then recovered, which is much better.

Sioux Falls - the largest city in South Dakota with about 200,000 people - is about 30 minutes from this campground. We took an afternoon to explore Sioux Falls and we were not disappointed.

Of course, you can't visit Sioux Falls without going to Falls Park, where you can see a large collection of water falls.

It is a lovely park, plenty of parking and easy to find.

This would be a great location for a yoga or meditation class.

We went into the downtown area to walk around and see the public art.

There was a patisserie! Oh my stars, a real patisserie!  I splurged and bought beignets and croissants for our breakfast for the next few mornings. Then Ari and I shared this lovely chocolate mousse with a gold flake decoration.

This is a statue of a trapper.