30 06 08
OK, somethin'
Remember when you were a kid and you told your parents you were doing nothin' while you were really up to something? I guess I'm still a kid at heart.
What we were doing was traveling across South Dakota as quickly as we could to try registering for an RV convention in Gillette, Wyoming. We'd been told we could probably get a site with full hook-ups even though we hadn't preregistered because they'd had a few cancellations. We didn't want to tell anyone what we were doing because we didn't want competition for those sites. We got the last one. Now that we are here we can talk about it.
This convention is called an Escapade and it is sponsored by the Escapees RV Club. The Escapees are mostly people who live in their RVs full time--people who have escaped from the demands of an ordinary life so they can travel around the country having a good time wherever the weather suits their soul.
We've been members of this group since ...
(more)26 06 08
Another moving day
Yesterday we finally arrived in South Dakota. You can always tell when you cross the boundary of a new state--there are signs listing regulations and a truck weigh station. :) The thing that puzzled us, though, was a flagman out in the middle of nowhere showing us a stop sign while motioning us to go who appeared to be cussing us out for not being able to understand what we were supposed to do. Another sign that we had entered South Dakota was the stand selling fireworks--apparently, they are legal here.
We stopped at Perkins for lunch and had our usual orders there. It's nice to have a usual when everything else is changing all the time.
Once in Sioux Falls, our new home place, we stopped at Alternative Resources to pick up our mail and get clarifications as to what all we needed to do to become official residents. Driver's licenses first they said.
So we walked next door and got in just before a rush. How lucky could we be? ...
(more)25 06 08
An earth friendly day
Most days don't have themes but yesterday sure seemed to have one. Environmentalism was the theme of the day.
We started the day sheltered by the trees in Ambrose A. Call State Park in Iowa. The park has a disc golf course that looked fun and challenging but we don't have any discs with us so we packed up to head out.
Packing up on this day included stashing a book I finished reading the night before and digging out another one. Both of these books were used ones I got at a campground book exchange by turning in ones I had read for ones I had not.
As we drove west on US Hwy 18 I was aware of the recent flooding there. The number of trees in the rivers indicated just how far those rivers had overflowed their banks. Many soy bean fields had large muddy spots in them. And the corn was going to have to work some to grow "knee high by the 4th of July" which is what I learned it should do as a child growing up in central Illinois. ...
(more)24 06 08
The Journey Begins
Yesterday felt like the first day of our journey. We've owned our RV for two months and have lived in it for about half that time but we've been too busy sorting, storing, selling and saying good-by to travel.
Now, we are on the road headed for South Dakota to finish the moving business. We thought about taking the southwestern route across Minnesota but I have done that before and Dave didn't care if he saw the sod house and Jeffers petroglyphs so we are traveling across northern Iowa instead.
When we entered Iowa the welcome sign said "Fields of opportunities." The first field I was aware of was a field of windmills harvesting the wind. Then we saw a bunch of railroad tank cars set out by some large grain bins and wondered if the cars were to be filled with corn syrup or if they are now harvesting ethanol. Evidence of modern crops gave me hope for our country. ...
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