Last weekend my friends and I took what we consider our last camping/photo trip of the year. There will be no more day long or overnight camping trips full of campfires, s’ mores and fishing. I don’t fish, but my friends often took fishing poles along on our trips. Now it’s just getting too cold. I will certainly get out and hike trails, photo trips and enjoy the outdoors as much as I can. I’m not a fan of winter, but I do look forward to photographing this winter. I took a minute to count up the state parks I visited this year. Twelve South Dakota state parks! Most are in the southeastern part of the state. Several of the parks are close and include multiple trips. One of the state parks is about ten minutes from where I live. I visit it nearly every weekend.
This last trip was to Fort Sisseton State Park in northern South Dakota. We took the 3+ hour drive to enjoy the forts first haunted tour. I didn’t know what to expect but it was pretty cool. We had a couple of younger kids with us and they enjoyed the tour also. Not very far from Fort Sisseton is Sic Hollow State Park. We visited Sica Hollow late in the day and did not have much time to explore it(we had to be back at a certain time for the haunted tour). Sica Hollow is really interesting and I could feel certain energy there. It would be one of the state parks I would like to return to, but I would be surprised to get that far north again.
Fort Sisseton State Park
Sic Hollow State Park
I don’t think I could have asked for more fun over the summer weekends. My friends and I road-tripped hundreds of miles, took thousands of photographs and had a lot of fun! My friend mentioned yesterday she was looking up state parks in Minnesota to visit next year. 
South Dakota State Parks visited in 2014:
- Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve
- Bear Butte State Park
- Fort Sisseton Historic State Park
- Good Earth State Park at Blood Run
- Lewis and Clark Recreation Area
- Newton Hills State Park
- Palisades State Park
- Roughlock Falls Nature Area
- Sica Hollow State Park
- Spirit Mount Historic Prairie
- Springfield Recreation Area
- Union Grove State Park