That is how far away the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery is from our campground we are staying at for the summer. I bring this up because. Spearfish and Deadhorse was warm and sunny. We had an amazing time even stopped for ice cream. On the way home we were delayed by some big horn sheep. right outside of Deadwood. You can see a few clouds in the sky and a bit of blue. So, it should be nice like that at home, right!

That was not the story at all. 68 miles away there was a freak storm. I get a text from Monica the owner of Timber Ridge Campground (which is home base for the summer). Asking where we were and how was the weather. I said Deadwood and the weather was good. She then sends me a video.

All I could text back was holy CRAP. I guess it came out of nowhere. It did not appear on radar and only lasted for 10 minutes. Her hubby Pete was shopping in Custer SD which is only 14 miles from the campground, and it was blue skies. Just strange how weather can be so different within a few miles. After about ten minutes the skies cleared, and the sun came out. It took us about an hour to get home and there was still hail on the ground. The damage we received from this hailstorm was very minimal. It involved the lid to the citronella candle, our decorator lights and a bunch of leaves in the yard. The lights looked like someone used them for target practice. The awning had tiny bb wholes near the edge that is attached to the trailer. The awning is self-retracting and will roll itself up if there is a threat to it. This worked like it was supposed or we could have had more damage.

I don’t remember every being in a hailstorm before. This is one first I did NOT need to experience. We got ‘treated’ to a hailstorm the next night. It seems I needed to get the full effect of a hailstorm not just the damage afterwards. We were just leaving Rapid City after dinner and some shopping when, the hail started to pound. You can see us pull under the awning of a gas station to wait for it to pass over us.

We pulled out from under the cover when it looked like it was letting up. This allowed us to stay behind the storm. Our dash cam was able to catch the aftermath of hail on the road by catching the steam rising from the road. Once in the trailer and getting ready for bed the sky let loose again. This time I think the hail was larger. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks down on the trailer roof. One sounded like it was the size of a bowling ball had hit the roof. Lucky for us the only damage was a small crack in the skylight over the shower.

This has been a crazy summer of weather. I was however able to practice shooting lightning so that is a plus.