Around South Dakota

 

We were doubly lucky in that it lasted only about 20 minutes at that strength and the really great news – the new slide seals and the work we had done at D&R RV before we left have cured the couple of slight leaks we had in the past.

We had never seen another Monaco the same color as oursUntil now!

Our objective for the first part of this trip has been to reach Rapid City and renew our drivers licenses, so it came as a shock to find that we couldn’t do that without going online and setting an appointment. Doubly shocking was that the soonest appointment was in August almost 4 weeks away. We didn’t intend on hanging around that long so we decided to push the renewals to September and come back for them after exploring elsewhere.

We had friends of friends who were members of a campground near Rapid City called Hart Ranch. They recommended we visit there and get the 3 day special which included 3 nights camping for $60 if you took their sales tour.

We called the sales office and where soon settled in a very nice camping spot. The sales tour lasted all of 30 minutes, but we aren’t willing to get tied down to a resort that we probably will never return to, A nice place though, especially if you have a young family. We got together with Marita and Kevin who are also Sundance winter residents, for a happy hour over at their site.

Kevin and Marita

When we came here 5 years ago we stayed first at the Tee Pee CG then the Elks Lodge, we moved to the Elks as soon as we left Hart Ranch. A grueling 12 mile drive!!

The Lodge is a welcoming as it was back then and we discovered they had a nice Brown Ale on tap. They also had a dartboard so we were in heaven.

We sorted out grocery shopping and even found enough time to buy a used electronic dartboard for when we get back to Arizona. A few breweries were also sampled!

We revisited the old center of town and found a few new places. We really like Rapid City which has a very cozy feeling.

I know some people don’t like Facebook for various reasons but we find it a great tool for keeping in touch with people.

 While scrolling thru the news we saw that a friend and former colleague from San Diego - Carlos Fletes, his wife Isobel and their family were in Keystone SD, about 30 miles down the road. We arranged to meet them that evening.

We guessed that they might be staying at the Ramada Inn and, by sheer coincidence, as we drove down the Main Street outside the hotel we stopped at a pedestrian crosswalk.

Carlos and Isobel

Crossing the street RIGHT THERE was Carlos and his family!

We had a great couple of hours catching up on each others news and enjoying their account of the road trip they were on. How different it is fitting in travel and work! We are so glad we gave up work!!

And it didn’t stop there, for within 24 hours we learned that Carol and Matt, also friends from San Diego, were heading this way from Wisconsin. Naturally we hooked up with them next and we all celebrated their 1^st year of fulltiming and simultaneously our 5^th!! 

That’s right it was 5 years on July 27^th since we left San Diego.

Matt and Carol

What fun to sit with Matt and Carol and compare experiences over dinner. We found a nice place, The Silver Spoon, where the ingredients were fresh and tasty. They had some decent beer to wash it down with too. Just 5 years ago we were having our wishes come true, and here we are in the same place living the dream. I often wonder how we have been chosen to be this lucky.

After several days we started heading East again and stopped in Pierre (Pronounced PEER for you non South Dakotans). Pierre is the capital of South Dakota but strangely smaller than many towns. It’s location slap in the middle of the state explains why it was chosen as the capital. A fun little town which we have visited before, it’s right on the banks of the Missouri River, so you could put your canoe in the water here and paddle all the way to New Orleans if you had the mind. We didn’t, so we found a few places to play darts then moved on again to Sioux Falls.

The falls in Sioux Falls

In the Historic District

At this point things suddenly started to break. I don’t know why they all go at once but that often seems the way it happens.

 The handle snapped off my coffee cup and soaked me in coffee, Barbara’s decided it would get it the act and broke too. Our sewer hose suddenly sprang small leaks along its length, then the water hose started leaking at the filler.

 I fixed the water hose and we got a new sewer hose, which immediately started leaking at the tank end! A new gasket fixed that but then the water filter housing mysteriously shattered so we had to bypass that! 

I was breathing a sigh of relief that we were leaving when the entry step decided it was going to stop working too! I finally got everything working again then the Miata engine warning light came on. I carry a code reader and cleared the codes which were nothing at all.

The Royal Air Force has  always sworn that Gremlins (fabled creatures that like to break things) are real, I think we’ve got one onboard lately.

We hopefully corralled all those Gremlins, fixed our problems and headed East again out of South Dakota. We will hopefully be back this was in September to finally get our drivers licenses taken care of.