A Quick Trip To South Dakota

Friday, Aug 9th, we drove up the road to Pangborn Airport in East Wenatchee, WA and rented a Dodge Dart from Budget Rent A Car. This will save us a small fortune in fuel by not driving our big truck.

We are headed to the Rapid City, SD area to get our drivers licenses and register our vehicles. We are also meeting up with friends that we had met at a RV Dreams rally in Harrisburg, OR in 2012. And a little sight seeing too.

We drove 593 miles the first day. But failed to make any plans for a motel. oops! We got to Bozeman and by using our smart phone, started calling motels. All were full. We continued to Livingston (straight north of Yellowstone) and hid in a motel parking lot and hunkered down to try and get some sleep. It was horrible. Between 10PM and 2 AM, we almost got a little sleep. Then a big lady (motel clerk) stuck a flashlight into my eyes and said 'Move on'! Rats! We moved to a big gas station with lots of trucks parked there, but it was too light and I didn't have a good feeling there. We moved to a back corner of a Shopko parking lot and we dozed there for 3 hours or so.

Saturday, Aug 10th

5 AM we were on the move heading south on Hwy 89 to Yellowstone National Park.

We stopped for breakfast in Gardiner, MT, then entered the park.

I got to use my 'Access Pass' for the first time. Cool...free admission.. oh yea.

We stopped at the first 'hot springs' area and took some pictures.

Liberty Cap.

There are lots of cool hot springs areas.

We saw some wildlife. Holding up traffic. Making us tourists happy.

I thought there was an accident up ahead at first.

Nope, here he comes...

A BIG boy, for sure.

The scenery was beautiful. I walked down to a little stream. A hot stream!

 It looked like there was a forest fire, but no... just steam.

Hot, hot, hot...

We saw lots of water falls too.

Large areas of volcanic activity...geysers.

We spent a bit of time at the Old Faithful area.

We had to wait here for the big show.

Here it goes.

Lots of cameras going off here.

We left the park from the East Gate on Hwy 14 towards Cody. Beautiful scenery. Glad we didn't have our 5th wheel on these roads. Cody was pretty cool, and the road from here to Sheridan was really curvy and steep, up and down, but also beautiful. After 377 miles this day, we stopped for the night at a Best Western in Sheridan - that we had made reservations at earlier this morning. We slept good.

Sunday, Aug 11, 2013

We hit the road around 9 AM after a big breakfast at the motel.

South Dakota at last.

We took a 10 mile detour off of our route on I90, to visit the town of Belle Fourche. We HAD to stop at the geographic center of the 50 United States.

Donna took our gnome - Fergizmo - to the monument.

He had to be 'dead center'.

Happy gnome.

Of course, I had to do this too...

244 miles today, and we made it to the Happy Holiday RV Resort.

They have a motel and cabins here also. We have a motel room in the back with a kitchen.

Here is our room.

And the inside.....

We met up with Ruth & Dale Finkenbiner and Ann & Hank David that we had met at the RV Dreams Rally last year. We talked and talked, catching up.

Then got together for dinner.

Here is Ruth & Dale's rig.

And Ann & Hank's rig.

Nice Mobile Suites RVs. We will be in ours next month and on the road...can't wait!

Tomorrow, a little sight seeing.....

Stay tuned.

Taking Care of the Details

While we are here (house-sitting) for 1 more month, we are busy getting everything in order for our departure into the full time lifestyle.

I only have to mow and water the orchard once a week.

So we have plenty of time to get things done. We even had time to watch our Great Grandson Oli for a bit.

What a cutie huh?

Here is Donna building a Lincoln Log house....while Oli eats one.

Right after moving our rig here, we finally found a good home for Boo Boo, our lovable giant cat.

RV life doesn't agree with her. We are so very glad we found a 'good' home. We are now 'pet less'. Now we can take off for multiple days and not worry about leaving her, or the AC turning off. We will miss her though.

We opened an account with USAA. Checking, Saving, and a credit card too. It sure was easy (unlike B of A). Everything has our permanent South Dakota address on it. WE have already received our debit cards and checks. Free, Free, Free. I have been busy changing all our direct deposits and auto-payments to the new address.

Donna has shampooed the whole RV and we have re-organized again. Getting rid of more un-used stuff. I got to go through and re-arrange the basement.....again.

We noticed an unpleasant odor and so I got to snooping around to try and locate a problem.

While cleaning out the basement, I took down the wall and looked inside at all the hoses, wiring, tanks and plumbing.

 No leaks and all looks good in there.

So I got out my trusty expandable extension ladder,

and got up on the roof. I installed a Max Air vent cover for our vent/fan in the bathroom. And a vent cover for our Fantastic Fan also. We had been wanting these for some time.

I had to determine which vent cap was the black water tank, so I removed both caps and Donna flushed the toilet and I ...cough ... cough... determined which one it was. Both vents had a lot of space between the 1 1/2 inch black PVC pipe that extends down to our tanks.

I think the foul odors could have gone around the PCV and entered into our ceiling as well as exiting out the vent cap. I filled the gap of the grey water tanks vent with a healthy dose of Dicor. I then installed one of those Cyclone do-hickies that suck the odors out. I really was generous with the Dicor.

No more odors, and it looks kinda groovy up there between my new vent cover and the solar panels.

This Friday, we leave (in a rental car) and head to South Dakota and complete our steps for residency. SD will be our domicile state from then on.  We have rounded up all our required paperwork to get our driver's licenses and register our truck and 5th wheel there. 

We are meeting up with several other RV Dreamers (Ruth & Dale, Ann & Hank and others)  there and we are gonna have a ball. Happy Holiday Campground here we come!
We are going to buzz through Yellowstone NP on the way too.

It will be good to get away from..

 Stay tuned.