Oh no, I said a four letter word!

I mentioned in the last blog that things were starting to change some around here. I guess that was an understatement because look what we woke up to last Thursday morning.

The snow continued all day Thursday finally quitting just before dark. We ended up with a total of 10 inches of heavy wet snow. Thursday is our first day of our work week so it was dark by the time I got home and of course our roof mounted satellite dome receiver was covered in snow and would not receive a signal. We were able to watch some movies we had on the DVR and rather then listen to the motor run on the antenna (it was constantly adjusting trying to tune in a signal) I shut it off. This turned out to be a bad thing because now it is not working correctly. I called Dish Network and everything checks out OK on their equipment so they are saying it is a Wineguard issue. I can tune in one satellite but it will not switch to the other satellite that carries some of the channels we receive. This used to be totally automatic but now has become a giant pain in the you know what! I climbed up on the roof and took the lid off the dome, no loose connections but one of the two bundles of wires going into the dish is dry rotted and splitting. I could not see any bare wires exposed but feel like this may be my issue. I plan on calling Wineguard tomorrow and see if there is any trouble shooting I can do from here to make sure the wire harness is the issue.

Work is slowing down to a more predictable pace and several of our fellow work campers have left or are packing things up to leave. We are contracted through the 30th of September so only 2 more weeks of work for us. :-) I'll keep you posted

just hangin' around

We are quickly moving into summer here in the Black Hills, at least the calender says so. The weather has not caught on that it is almost July and we have had some really cool nights and it seems that most everyday it clouds up and we have storms move through. Rudee's schedule for last week shifted inexplicably to evenings each day. In the weeks prior she would work a couple of "closing" shifts and then her hours would be closer to my 8am - 7pm. We think it is just an oversight as her manager just took over the scheduling duties and was receptive to a change to get closer to my shifts. She doesn't mind closing but would not get home until around 11 pm and I just couldn't stay up that long, just look at any picture of me ..... I need my beauty sleep! LOL

A couple of weeks ago I repaired a leaky pump in our Splendide washer/dryer. The repair worked and we have no more leaks however it started acting up and would stop in mid cycle, right when it needed to pump the water out. We would have to manually advance the dial to get it to start working again, sometimes it we would have to advance it several times before it would start. I figured I would wait until my first day off, yesterday, to take it back out of it's cubby hole and see if I could figure out the problem. Lo and behold, it started working again just like it was supposed to. We have now done 5 or 6 loads and it worked perfect. Guess I'll wait and see what happens next week but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

A couple of weeks ago we made a stop in Sturgis to see the town before all the rally in August. We parked on main street and checked out a couple of shops, one of which was a thrift shop ran by a local womens club where I found a Black and Decker space saver coffee pot. Our motorhome had one at one time but had been removed by the previous owner. I looked it over at the store and quickly paid the $2.00 they were asking for it. I installed it when we got home and the brackets lined up with the existing holes in the shelve, Sweet!

I ran a few pots of vinegar water through it and it works good as new.

One of my jobs at Crazy Horse includes taking people up to the top of the mountain for a "private" tour. I love going up and seeing the monument close up and have met some really nice people on my trips. We sometimes see the mountain goats walking around and the view is always fantastic! One day last week we got to see some of the crew preparing the mountain for our summer night blast.

Look closely and you will see there are two of the workers that have rappelled off the top. They were attaching mount brackets in order to string the explosives for the blast.
I keep having to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming about the cool stuff I get to do, and I get paid for it too! :-)

Last Wednesday we got together with Dan and Jonell, liv2RV, and they all thought I needed to add a little culture to my rough and tumble life. We started with dinner at a nice restaurant in Keystone, The Powderhouse, where we had a nice meal. Then they took me to the "theater", pronounced with a British accent. :-)

The playhouse is located in Custer State Park and is free to us on certain evenings with our VIP passes. We saw a 22 act musical based on a childrens fairy tail and it was quite enjoyable. The cast were all very talented and we are looking forward to the next one. I still have to work on getting my pinky extended when I am hoisting my beer bottle but these things take time. :-)

We are looking forward to the night blast this Thursday at work. Should any of you readers find yourself in the Black Hills be sure and look us up! We are the ones that can't wipe the grins off our faces, we are having such a good time here. Of course our blog is not complete without a Buffalo picture.

He was a cutey! I'll keep you posted.

like we never left ..... almost

I forgot to update you on my findings on our electrical issue. Last Saturday I disconnected the 50 amp extension cord and found that the "male" end had a crack in the plastic so decided to take the plug apart to investigate things a little further. Once I had the plug opened up I found our problem. The white wire had pulled loose and apparently had made contact with one of the other wires causing our issue. I was using our 40' extension cord because I thought the on-board cord would not reach. I pulled it out and could reach the pedestal but am sure glad it wasn't another foot away or we would be in trouble. :-)
Using my multi-meter I checked the campground plug and it tested OK so I plugged back in, turned on the breakers and VOILA we have 50 amp power to the coach. :-) I will be purchasing a new 50 amp male end for the extension cord because we have used the cord from time to time and it is very handy to have around.
Rudee and I both started working Wednesday. She was in the gift shop and went through training on their new computer system. Last year they were using an antiquated system and have upgraded to a more user friendly windows based system.
I worked in the Welcome Center where they had a special event occurring. We had around 300 High School freshman attending a program called "Freshman Impact" where they rotate through different "stations". There were professionals from various Police, Fire, EMS and Health Care who gave instructions on topics such as drug use, suicide and bullying. They had demonstrations set up showing how a person's body reacts in a roll over accident, first restrained by a seat belt and then unrestrained. They also had extrication demonstrations including Emergency Medical demonstrations at a mock auto accident complete with "victims". After lunch they attended a mock trial of a teen charged with OWI causing a death in an auto accident and then had to pay their respects to one of their "classmates", the victim of the accident. Very powerful stuff to say the least.
Besides all of this going on we had our regular visitors so we stayed hopping keeping everyone and everything on the right track. :-)
Last year I worked predominantly in the ticket booths on the entrance road. I really wanted to be more involved with guests so last year before leaving I discussed it with my boss. He was very supportive and this year I will be doing something new at work. My job will be as a type of "floater". I will work in the Welcome Center "area" but may be called upon to drive a tour bus for a special tour, take a van tour to the top of the mountain, run errands for the boss around the complex etc. I really wont know what I will be doing from one day to the next, sometimes even one hour to the next but that really doesn't bother me and I enjoy the variety. Plus I get to carry a two way radio, makes it feel just like the old days! HAHAHA
Most of what we are doing though is "old hat" and we fell right back into the routine. There are a few new faces but also a lot of folks we worked with last year have returned (or are year round) and welcomed us back with enthusiasm. We are both confidant we made the right decision to return and are looking forward to a great summer, the only bad thing is summer is a little slow in coming. Yesterday we woke up to this

We got about 4" of snow and it was pretty cold when we rolled out of bed. I was prepared though and had filled our on board water tank before disconnecting the hose so we wouldn't freeze up. The night before we found Amazon buddies Dan and Jonelle had arrived in their 5er and I had the chance to visit with them for a few minutes. Shortly after I took the photo I spotted Jonelle outside and she was cleaning the snow off the windows of the Dakota! Thanks Jonelle! I wasn't sure how I was going to do that since I have no idea where my ice scraper got to. :-)
We got the chance to spend some time with them last evening when we all went out to dinner. We had a great time and the restaurant even gave us a 10% discount for being work campers in the area. Nice! We took them to Crazy Horse afterwards to show them around a little so they will be familiar with the surroundings when the start work next Wednesday. We also showed them some of the local "sites", maybe they will expand a little more on their sightseeing on their blog liv2rv. :-)
Looks like we may be working through the week end but I have not seen the schedule past today. We have asked to work four 10 hour days versus our five eight hour days from last year. My boss has agreed and my days off are Mon, Tues and Wed. Rudee has a different boss and should have the same schedule but we have not heard "officially" yet. I'll keep you posted.

See ya soon ........ :-(

We had delayed our departure for long enough so we decided that Wednesday morning was "D" day. We were up early so we could spend a few minutes with the Grandkids before they had to leave for school.

Bye bye Guys, Love you all bunches and bunches, big alligator tears made their first appearance about now.
I disconnected the hoses and cords and hooked on the bike trailer before going out to breakfast with our daughter Amanda. Once we were back at the house we said our good byes to her and had our second round of alligator tears before heading back out onto the road.

Without a doubt leaving family after a visit and knowing it will be months before seeing them again is the hardest part of our lifestyle. We love you guys and will miss you more then you could ever imagine.

We headed west on I-74 and soon found ourselves in Illinois where we were met with a thick layer of low hanging gray clouds. The wind also picked up and we ended up fighting it the entire trip. We ran into a few showers, no hard rain but enough to run the wipers occasionally. Our first night was spent at the Amana Colonies RV Park in Amana, Iowa. The park is more of a rally park (think Fairground style parking) and is huge. They are a Passport America park and offer full hookups for $18 per night for members.
Thursday morning we headed out early because we wanted to get some miles under our belts. Now that we are fulltimers I try and avoid traveling on the week ends. The biggest reason for me is it just seems like it would be easier to get a tire changed or road service if something should go wrong on the rig while on the highway.  The weather was more of the same, on again off again showers, windy and we had the same gloomy layer of clouds covering as far as the eye could see. We took I-80 west until turning North onto I-29. The traffic was fairly light, even through the larger cities and we made decent time in spite of the headwind. Once we got to Sioux Falls we turned west on I-90 which would take us to the Black Hills. Our stop for the night was in Plankinton, SD at another Passport America park. Hills RV Park is decent for an overnight stay. They have fairly long pull through sites with full hook ups and Wifi which was a little on the slow side but usable to check emails etc. They are right next to I-90 but the noise from the highway wasn't bothersome since traffic was pretty light. I would imagine during Sturgis week the noise level would change somewhat. :-)
Friday morning we woke up to clear skies for the first time since we left Indiana. The wind was still blowing but didn't seem as hard as the last two days. We headed out for our final leg of the trip. Today's drive was a shorter one, under 300 miles plus we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone so we gained an hour without even trying. :-) We made one stop at a rest park for a quick snack and bathroom break before arriving at our exit in Rapid City. There is a Flying J truck stop at the exit so we took advantage and topped off both the propane and the diesel in the motorhome. The last leg of the trip was on the winding, hilly US 16. There are several fairly large climbs between the interstate and Crazy Horse bit the road is nicely paved and once again traffic was pretty light. We arrived at our "summer home" shortly after 2 pm and got set up on our site. The sites are somewhat downhill so the front end of the motorhome is fairly high and I had to use several boards under the wheels but our side yard is a lot bigger then last year.
I did have an issue setting up. I plugged in the 50 amp extension cord into the pedestal and when I turned on the power Rudee heard a "pop" inside the rig and one of our GFI plugs started smoking. I shut it down quickly and started inspecting. I found several breakers tripped so knew it was some sort of power surge. I decided to switch to the 30 amp plug in on the pedestal and that worked fine. I have checked everything out on the coach and everything is fine except for the GFI which I will replace. I'm not sure if the problem is with their pedestal or with my extension cord. I will check the cord today and if it is OK they are going to check the pedestal on Monday. We will just stay plugged into the 30 amp until then. We had a plug in style surge protector that went missing at some point. I'm pretty sure I left it at a campsite versus it being stolen but I'm not 100% positive on where. We are shopping for a hard wired unit but need to recover from the air conditioner purchase first. Needless to say we are happy to be back on the payroll again. :-)
Once we got comfy in our site we checked in with the folks at Crazy Horse. There were a lot of familiar faces and we had a great time talking to everyone and are really looking forward to our season. Friends and fellow bloggers Steve and Joan, FOSJ, started working here on Wednesday. Joan is working in the gift shop with Rudee and Steve is driving one of the tour buses. They had to work until 6:30 so we made arrangements to go out to dinner once they returned to the campground. We are parked right next to them, they ride Harleys and Steve golfs, yep gonna be a good summer! :-)
We had dinner at the Alpine Inn in Hill City where your only choices are small or large Filet Mignon. We all chose the small and it comes with a salad, bread and potato for  $9.95. The meal was very good (as usual) and we had a great time laughing and telling stories. Once back at the camper we invited them over for some dessert of Hummingbird Cake given to us by our good friend Jany Runion as a "going away" present before we left Indiana. Thanks Jany it was fantastic!
Our first shift will be Wednesday for orientation so we have a few days to settle in before starting work. Let the summer begin! I'll keep you posted.

still here

Saturday morning I played in a golf scramble put on as a fund raiser for our church, The day was perfect weatherwise but not so good for me "golfwise". I played really, really lousy for the first few holes and am not sure why. The way a scramble works is all four members of the team tee off and you pick the best drive then the other three pick up their balls and all four hit again from that location. You keep picking the best shot each time until you "hole out". My only saving grace was my putter so I was able to help the team some early on. I did improve a little as we made our way around the course and we ended up taking 3rd place and I missed the individual award for "longest drive" by only 3 yards. Rudee helped in registration and traveled around the course taking some "action shots" for the church's flier. We both had a fun day and enjoyed catching up with our "church family".

Our original plan was to leave on Monday morning to head for South Dakota for our summer job at the Crazy Horse Memorial but the weather didn't sound too good with rain, wind and storms predicted. We decided to delay our start another day so Sunday we made plans with our good friends Steve and Trish to meet in Lebanon for lunch. We had a great time and lingered for quite awhile just talking and laughing about old times. :-)
Sunday evening Rudee had arranged for a few of her classmates to meet in Rockville, Indiana for supper. We all graduated from the same High School me in '77 and the rest in '78. One of her classmates couldn't attend because her husband was in the hospital :-( Get well soon Mike and we'll see you and Laura next time.
Here is a photo of the "gang"

We all laughed and shared stories for a long time, we even thought at one time that the restaurant had forgotten we were there, even with all the noise we were making, and had closed! :-)

Yesterday I started getting the motor home ready for travel while Rudee and Amanda went to visit her Mother. I got on the internet and double checked the weather for our route and found that South Dakota was under a Winter Weather Warning and some areas of the Black Hills were expecting up to 15" of snow! YIKES!
Here is the "viewing veranda" at Crazy Horse yesterday morning via their webcam

We decided another day "moochdocking" was in order and delayed our start one more day. So as of right now we will leave tomorrow morning to start our trek West. Our first day of work is Wednesday May 7th so we still have plenty of time if the weather makes another downturn but so far the forecast looks promising for a safe trip. Our thoughts are with our friends and fellow fulltimers who are in the southern states where there has been another tornado outbreak. We hope you all are safe and sound. I'll keep you posted.

Karma?

Today is our Friday and once we finish work this evening we will be off for two days! Thank goodness, we are both stiff and sore from all the standing we do. I know we will get back in shape soon but it has just been too long since we have had to "man a post" for 8 hours at a time. :-)

The other morning I heard a loud "BOOM" that made me jump from my chair. It came from the direction of the Memorial and this view confirmed they were blasting away some rocks.

You kind of forget this is a working sculpture and they are blasting, chiseling and shaping almost everyday.

I got an interesting email yesterday. You might remember we had contracts signed to work in the bookstores at Mount Rushmore. When Rudee was diagnosed and started treatment we called our supervisor and explained our difficulties. She was very nice and told us they would "work with us" and gave her our new arrival date of June 1st. Ten days before we were supposed to leave she sent us an email that our jobs had been filled and she wished us well and perhaps next year would work out better if we were still interested. We were both looking forward to working in the Black Hills and the job sounded interesting as well. We were very disappointed and kind of felt like we were getting kicked while we were down. We scrambled to find another position for the summer which led us to Crazy Horse. Anyway, I got this email from the supervisor at Mount Rushmore. She told me that our replacement had turned in their notice and she was looking for help and was hoping we would consider leaving here and coming to work for her. Hmmmm, took us about 2 seconds to decide what to do on that request. :-)
I sent her an email back, thanked her for her interest in us and explained we were grateful that the Crazy Horse Memorial give us positions and were loving our new jobs and no, we would be staying and working here this summer. I think Karma must have struck! :-)

We are looking forward to our days off so we can do some exploring. We need some "wind therapy" on the bike to heal our aching feet and backs! I'll keep you posted.

first day at Crazy Horse

Yesterday was our first day at work. We started by doing all the paperwork one does when starting a new job. We then took a tour of the facility and saw the movie in the visitors center. We then met our supervisors and were assigned to our "trainers for the day". Rudee works in the gift shop which is located in the main building adjacent to the visitors center, museum, restaurant etc.
I am working at the ticket gate which is a line of booths halfway up the main entrance drive. I exchange the visitors "dead presidents" for entrance tickets. The entrance fee is $10 per person or $27 for a car load, motorcycles and bicycles/walkers get a break of $5 per person. There are several "discounts" for Military (both active and veterans), boy scouts in uniform, Native Americans etc.
I had several people feel like the fees were too high and we try to explain there is a lot more to see then just a big rock being carved. There is an impressive museum with thousands of artifacts as well as Native American vendors selling their hand made wares. They have Native American dancers entertaining several times a day. You can even get free coffee and a free rock (with authenticity) that was blown off the mountain.  We were very impressed with the facility and could spend 2-3 hours looking over everything. For an additional fee ($4) you can take a tour to the bottom of the mountain for a closer view of the carving and every night there is a laser light show on the side of the mountain. You end up getting a lot for your $10 admission (in my opinion) plus you can get a "pass out" and return for free anytime in the next three days.
I enjoy talking to the folks driving in, even though it is brief. I had a small motorhome pull up with Indiana plates and talked to them as they were deciding whether to pay or turn around. I told them how I was impressed with the facility and they decided to give it a try. A couple of hours later they came back out and stopped near our booths and motioned me over. I thought they just had a question so walked over to help. They were all wide eyed and thanked me for talking them into going in! They said it was the best place they had stopped in the Black Hills and had to drag their teenage daughter away from the place. They also said they got a return pass and were coming back tomorrow. I had a big smile on my face and it sure was nice of them to take the time to stop and thank me, it made my day!
Rudee and I both liked our first day and our co-workers. I think we are going to have some fun here. One thing is a little odd, the wife of the original sculptor is very much involved in the day to day operations. She is 87 years old and some of the rules are a little "quirky". I met her yesterday and she is such a sweetheart. She makes the final schedule and it is not posted until late in the day so you really don't know exactly what shift you will be working tomorrow until it is almost time to go home today.  That's a little weird but we have been told we will have the same days off together and they will be consistent from week to week. She also lives on site in the original cabin her and her husband built when he first started the carving. Her cabin is attached to the museum and you even go through part of it that they still use for family gatherings. When I met her (and one of her daughters) they welcomed me to their "home", that was kinda cool and their attitude is that we are all a big family not just employees. :-)
Rudee works the day shift today and I go in at 1pm and work until close (around 9:30 for us shack dwellers LOL). The atmosphere at work is laid back, fun and upbeat. Just what we wanted after such a bad experience last year at the KOA. I'll keep you posted.

settling in for the summer

The wind was wicked Friday night, the weatherman said it should die down after midnight. Didn't happen. I would have pulled the slide outs in had I known just how long and strong it was going to blow. Instead I was up before 5am because I just couldn't sleep with the noise of the wind blowing the awning on our bedroom slideout.
The gusts finally stopped shortly after dawn and the blue skies returned to the Black Hills. This is what we have been waiting for! I ventured outside and begin the process of re-positioning our rig. When we arrived the weather was just so nasty that we just parked the rig so we were off the road saving the final set up for better weather.
I unloaded the bike and unhooked the trailer, with Rudee's help we moved it out of our way. We weighed out our parking options. Our pull through site is plenty long enough but not real wide. We tossed around the idea of parking both the cargo trailer and the truck behind the motor home but this seemed too narrow. We settled on moving the motor home back about 10-12 feet allowing us to park the Dakota in front and keep the cargo trailer in back and use it as our "Harley garage".
While we were working we got to meet some of our co-workers who were out walking their pets, taking out their trash or just coming by to see what these two nutty people were up to. :-)

Once we got all the vehicles in their "proper" position we began to "build our nest" for the next several months. I got our clothes line rack mounted on the rear ladder, set up some of our patio carpet and even got our grille out in case we wanted to do some outside cooking.
We don't have a huge amount of "patio space" and there is a small pine tree that seems to be in the way no matter how we would have parked.

The view of our "boss" from the campground is kinda nice though!

We finished up our chores and took our first bike ride. The weather was a little cool so we stayed on the winding roads where we could keep our speed down and enjoy the ride. Our route took us past Mount Rushmore and into the town of Keystone. We checked out the camping spot we were originally assigned back when we thought we would be working there. Not bad but our view is better at Crazy Horse. :-)
We walked through some of the tourist shops at Keystone but really had no interest in buying anything. Back on the bike we road to Hill City following along the tracks for the 1880's train ride.

We took another break in Hill City since we didn't want to overdo Rudee's first bike ride since surgery. She did great though and we are looking forward to doing a lot of exploring on the Harley. I think we are going to like it here. :-) I'll keep you posted.