Broken Arrow Campground

Custer, South Dakota

This is our last stop in South Dakota before we head into Wyoming.

We stayed at Broken Arrow last time we were in Custer. Well, we pretty much visited every campground in the Custer area. I ended up creating a spreadsheet of all the campgrounds we visited. This is a useful tool if you want to come to Custer and you have a limited amount of time.

We did a reprise of Broken Arrow for several reasons. The owners are lovely. The horses get large covered stalls. There are round pens where you can turn the horses out for short periods of time. The trails are easy to access and quite beautiful. And, we are only ten minutes away from Custer, so easy to go into town to shop or eat. We also liked the English Touch Day Spa which is close by, so we could make appointments for a couple of massages.

With temps in the high 80s and Lennox unable to ride at high elevations, we spent our days at the public pool in Custer ($5/person) and a yoga studio called The Trailhouse. We took three different yoga classes and they were all wonderful.

The heated seat on the driver’s side of the truck kept turning on. Ari would turn it off and a few minutes later it would turn itself back on. This is a known problem with Silverado heated seats. The circuit board goes bad over time and needs to be replaced. Ari called around, but nobody wanted to fix it. They said they wouldn’t get the parts in by the time we were ready to leave the area.

So, Ari went to a Custer auto parts shop hoping they might be able to help him. They didn’t have the part, but they said a fellow had just moved into Custer about a year ago and was repairing vehicles. Just drive down the road a couple of miles, look for the property with the collection of junky looking cars. No sign and no address.

So, off we go to locate this mystery mechanic. Sure enough, a couple of miles down the road there is a property with a collection of broken down cars in the front. Ari gets the mechanic and brings him out to the truck. The guy disconnects the cables that go to the heated seat. We won’t have a heated seat on the driver’s side until we replace the circuit board, but given the heat wave we expect to continue for several months, I don’t think it will be an issue.

Ari gave the guy $20 for his time. It took him maybe 30 minutes to make the repair. The guy was willing to do it for free, but we felt we had to give him something for his time.

This is what it is like when you are traveling through small towns. You rely on locals to direct you to other locals who can help you out. When we started out on this journey, it never would have occurred to us to follow this path. If you tried this in a big city, you would not get this result. However, in a small town, this is the only way to find people who can help you.