Tuesday night we kept a close eye on the weather radar. The storms passed just south of us by just a few miles. We had quite the lightning show and the thunder rolled but we were living right and it passed us by. :-)
Wednesday morning we headed out for what we hoped would be a dry (and safe!) day. The skies were thick with clouds but the rain held off. Again we drove through areas where the road was just starting to dry after a stray shower but nothing fell on us. Our goal was to make it to Mitchell SD but I had scoped out several campgrounds along our route just in case we had to stop and hunker down.
Traffic was fairly light and we made good time and arrived in Mitchell shortly before 5pm. Our stop was at another Passport America park and we got our full hook up site for just over $18.00. We became life members of PA several years ago, figuring we could better afford the initial membership while we were still working. The lifetime membership cost us over $300 but we never have to pay dues again and we have already more than doubled our initial outlay in savings on camping fees so it is a win/win in my book.
Once we were parked for the night the storms caught up with us. :-o They were not severe storms but we had a large amount of rain in a very short time. I kept a keen eye out for any rising water (there was none) after our flooding episode last month. The rain let up right about bedtime so we were able to sleep without having to worry about inflating our kayak. :-)
Thursday the weather man was calling for more storms to develop for South Dakota in the early afternoon, so once again we were in "storm dodge" mode. We did run into a little rain but it didn't last too long. We stopped in Rapid City at the Flying J and topped off our on board LP tank. Since we will be parked until the first of October it is likely we will be needing to run the furnace occasionally between now and then.
We then had about 40 miles to travel to our temporary home at Crazy Horse. They are repaving part of SR 16 between Rapid City and Custer so we were having to climb some of those hills at a pretty slow pace. I kept an eye on the temp gauge as it started to climb, luckily it never got close to being "in the red". The wind started picking up shortly after we left the truck stop and it really whips through some of these narrow valleys. I was glad when we finally got to pull into the campground entrance. We checked in and got our site assignment (#6) at the Heritage Village Campground. True to form, as soon as I pulled into the site the rain started. I got all the utilities hooked up and came inside to warm up since the temperature dropped from upper 60's in Rapid City to the low 40's at Crazy Horse. BRRRRRR!
I checked our cell phones and we had one little bar of service. I decided to brave the weather and get our cell booster hooked up. While I was outside on the ladder securing the antenna the rain started to hurt. Holy Cow, it's sleeting! Then it changed quickly to snow! I finished up and headed back inside. Our phones now have 4 bars. Cool! Next was getting our Mifi fired up and see of we can get online. Our phones are AT&T while our Mifi is on Sprint through Virgin. I have never been a fan of Sprint. We had it at work and I could never get much of a signal unless I was near a fairly large city. I crossed my fingers and checked our signal. Nothing, Nada, Zip! We both knew we could not go very long with no internet and my i-phone showed I had a 3g signal so we decided to dump the Virgin unit and go with an AT&T unit as soon as we could find one.
Today was errand day. We drove to Rapid City and picked up our mail at our mail service. We are with America's Mailbox and they are super people to work with. We had already sent them all of our vehicle registrations and they had our license plates ready for us to pick up. They gave us all the information we needed to get our drivers licenses and even registered us to vote! Plus the owner of the company was there and gave us a big "Welcome Home" as we walked in the door of the office.
We had about a 20 minute wait while getting our drivers licenses but we were prepared with all the ID and paperwork we needed so it was an easy process.
Our next stop was Best Buy where we got our new AT&T mifi unit. Rudee has been due for an upgrade on her phone but has not found one she likes. Best Buy had one she wanted on display so we decided to go ahead and get her a new phone too. After a lot of waiting, the salesman came back and said they were all out of that model and could not get them anymore. They suggested that a nearby AT&T store might have one so that was our next stop.
Success! They didn't have the same model as Best Buy but Rudee found one she liked even better.
No trip to town would be complete without a trip to Wal Mart so that was our last stop. We picked up some groceries to get us through the next several days and made our way back to the motor home. Tomorrow I will get all of our new South Dakota license plates installed and our transformation from Hoosiers to whatever people from South Dakota are called will be complete. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
back on the road!
This morning we gave hugs and kisses to the kids and grand kids before they all left for work and school. The goodbyes are the worst, lots of crying and sad faces even though we all know we will be back soon it's still hard to leave.
When they had all left we finished our packing up and I buttoned up the motor home for travel. I think I must have walked around it eight or ten times making sure I had everything picked up.
We pulled out at 9am and drove to Crawfordsville where we topped off the fuel and met our son, Matthew, at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Oh no, more goodbyes. :-(
We had a nice visit with Matthew and then pointed the rig west. We made several stops at some of the rest parks. I wanted to make sure Rudee was not getting tired. Well that and also because I had drank about 16 cups of coffee this morning! :-)
We skirted storms most of the day but only had about 2 miles of light rain to drive through. Several times the pavement was soaked but we were living right and the rain itself had moved on. We ended up stopping at Amana Colonies RV Park in Amana, Iowa. This is a huge rally park with over 400 sites. Tonight there are about 30 rigs here. We decided on a full hook up site because Rudee wanted to do a couple of loads of laundry, even so the rate was only $18 with our Passport America membership.
They are calling for more storms for this area and we are under a tornado watch. Hopefully our luck will hold out and they will miss us. The skies sure look dark at times though.
Tomorrow we will continue our trek west. I'll keep you posted.
When they had all left we finished our packing up and I buttoned up the motor home for travel. I think I must have walked around it eight or ten times making sure I had everything picked up.
We pulled out at 9am and drove to Crawfordsville where we topped off the fuel and met our son, Matthew, at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Oh no, more goodbyes. :-(
We had a nice visit with Matthew and then pointed the rig west. We made several stops at some of the rest parks. I wanted to make sure Rudee was not getting tired. Well that and also because I had drank about 16 cups of coffee this morning! :-)
We skirted storms most of the day but only had about 2 miles of light rain to drive through. Several times the pavement was soaked but we were living right and the rain itself had moved on. We ended up stopping at Amana Colonies RV Park in Amana, Iowa. This is a huge rally park with over 400 sites. Tonight there are about 30 rigs here. We decided on a full hook up site because Rudee wanted to do a couple of loads of laundry, even so the rate was only $18 with our Passport America membership.
They are calling for more storms for this area and we are under a tornado watch. Hopefully our luck will hold out and they will miss us. The skies sure look dark at times though.
Tomorrow we will continue our trek west. I'll keep you posted.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Done!
Friday was a big day for us. We finished up Rudee's radiation treatments and are cleared to travel. They wanted to do follow up appointments in three months but we explained we are going out of state and not due to return until after October 1st. All the doctors said that would be fine and we have appointments set up with her Oncologist, Surgeon and Radiologist all on the same day.
We can finally start to "get back to normal".
The weather has not been the greatest the last several days, very grey and gloomy. The holiday week end forecast is for more of the same. They are saying the rain should hold off long enough to get the race in Sunday. We ventured out enough on Saturday to buy Rudee a new motorcycle helmet. I bought me one last week end when I rode to Illinois. We both needed new helmets but each one is a little different and you really need to try them on before buying. Riding buddy, Rob Runion, told me about a local Yamaha dealer that had some really nice flip style helmets on close out so we drove over and checked them out. Rudee likes the modular (flip up) helmet which is a combination open face with a drop down "chin bar" that converts the helmet to a full face style. Our old helmets were like this but were both at least 6 years old and pretty worn out. My new one is a 3/4 open face with a drop down shield to use when raining, I rarely rode with the old one in "full face" mode and didn't see the point investing in another one. I do like to have the face shield when we get caught in the rain or when it is cold. Rudee, on the other hand, keeps her chin bar dropped in place most of the time but likes to be able to raise it occasionally when she gets too hot.
We checked out the helmets and Rudee tried several on. We ended up buying her one that had been over $300 and was marked down to $99. They only had 5 of the modular ones left and we lucked out that one was the same color as my new one and was also Rudee's size. :-)
Sunday morning our son in law Ryan and I fired up his grille. We put a pork roast and a large slab of ribs on and slow roasted them for several hours. The girls fixed up some side dishes and I taught our grand daughter Avalynn where good ice cream comes from. :-)
In the Indianapolis area the race is blacked out on TV so it has been a tradition to gather around the radio and listen to the broadcast. Later tonight the local ABC station airs the taped telecast and we usually watch it then, of course we already know who won but it is still fun.
We gathered under our awning to listen, eat and just be together. I had a ball! :-)
Tomorrow we will start our preparations to leave. We have a lot of packing up to do since it has been almost two months since we have done any traveling. We are more then ready but it will be sad to say goodbye to the kids and grand kids. I'll keep you posted.,
We can finally start to "get back to normal".
The weather has not been the greatest the last several days, very grey and gloomy. The holiday week end forecast is for more of the same. They are saying the rain should hold off long enough to get the race in Sunday. We ventured out enough on Saturday to buy Rudee a new motorcycle helmet. I bought me one last week end when I rode to Illinois. We both needed new helmets but each one is a little different and you really need to try them on before buying. Riding buddy, Rob Runion, told me about a local Yamaha dealer that had some really nice flip style helmets on close out so we drove over and checked them out. Rudee likes the modular (flip up) helmet which is a combination open face with a drop down "chin bar" that converts the helmet to a full face style. Our old helmets were like this but were both at least 6 years old and pretty worn out. My new one is a 3/4 open face with a drop down shield to use when raining, I rarely rode with the old one in "full face" mode and didn't see the point investing in another one. I do like to have the face shield when we get caught in the rain or when it is cold. Rudee, on the other hand, keeps her chin bar dropped in place most of the time but likes to be able to raise it occasionally when she gets too hot.
We checked out the helmets and Rudee tried several on. We ended up buying her one that had been over $300 and was marked down to $99. They only had 5 of the modular ones left and we lucked out that one was the same color as my new one and was also Rudee's size. :-)
Sunday morning our son in law Ryan and I fired up his grille. We put a pork roast and a large slab of ribs on and slow roasted them for several hours. The girls fixed up some side dishes and I taught our grand daughter Avalynn where good ice cream comes from. :-)
In the Indianapolis area the race is blacked out on TV so it has been a tradition to gather around the radio and listen to the broadcast. Later tonight the local ABC station airs the taped telecast and we usually watch it then, of course we already know who won but it is still fun.
We gathered under our awning to listen, eat and just be together. I had a ball! :-)
Tomorrow we will start our preparations to leave. We have a lot of packing up to do since it has been almost two months since we have done any traveling. We are more then ready but it will be sad to say goodbye to the kids and grand kids. I'll keep you posted.,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)