South Dakota - Rain Rain Rain

We arrived in Sturgis last Wednesday and what a beautiful place. We no sooner got set up before it started to rain, and rained through the night. It was drizzling when we got up on Thursday morning but we decided to take a drive through the Spearfish Scenic Bypass anyway. It was amazing even through the drizzle. The Bypass loops around from Spearfish through Lead and into Deadwood. There was a creek running next to the road the entire trip, and we saw a beautiful waterfall as well. We even passed a meadow with 18 deer grazing.

We stopped in Deadwood for a while, found lots of casinos and gift shops, but didn't stick around long enough to find the historical stuff because of course, it was still raining.

It continued to rain until Sunday morning. Poor Mike, he had cabin fever so bad, I was ready to kick him out into the rain a couple of times. As soon as we saw some blue sky we jumped in the jeep and headed to Bear Country USA. No, we haven't seen Mt. Rushmore yet because we're waiting for a "sunny day". The owner of our campground told us that we would be able to take the soft top jeep through Bear Country. So we get there and the first thing they tell us... "you can't take the jeep through, but we do have a courtesy car you can use." We get a white Crown Victoria and we're thinking cool, a nice comfortable ride. Everything was great until about half way through when Mike says "the engine is getting really hot". Now mind you, it's only 68 degrees outside, so why the heck is this car overheating. By the time we got to the Bears the poor car was smoking like crazy and I was having a nervous breakdown. I'm sure the people behind us were ready to kill us, plus the poor animals having to breath that nasty air. We made to the end without the engine blowing up thank goodness.

Bear Country was really nice, the animals wonder all around the compound, and we even had to stop a couple of times when they decided to cross the street in front of the car. We saw Reindeer, Rocky Mountain Goats, Timber Wolves, Buffalo, Mountain Lions, and lots of Bears.

It started raining again last night (Sunday)and is expected to continue throuh tomorrow. We're supposed to see some sunshine on Wednesday. If so, we'll head straight to Mt. Rushmore. Wish us luck.

Still in South Dakota

Monday, May 19th ~ Wall, South Dakota, what can we say... biggest tourist trap we've ever seen. The wooden sidewalks were pretty cool, and the food was good, but every store carried the same stuff, you've seen one you've seen them all. We stayed at a campground called Sleepy Hallow. This place was straight out of the 70s, including the store and the lady that worked in it. Pretty funny.

Wednesday, May 21st ~ It's 7:00am and we're already on the road heading to Sturgis, SD. Now this is more like it. We're staying at Rush No More and it's beautiful. It's located in a valley surrounded by rolling hills covered in pine trees. There are horses next door and it's so neat to hear them. We were told that two weeks ago they had 30 inches of snow that lasted a week. Thank goodness that's gone, but it is a bit cool.

We will start our touring tomorrow and really look forward to it.

Iowa to South Dakota

Saturday, May 17th ~ Finally! the motor home was finished yesterday afternoon and we're ready to go. Since it was so late in the afternoon we decided to stay in the Winnebago parking lot one more night and take off this morning.

Another very windy trip, but we made it to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in one piece. We're staying at the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park. We just watched Yogi drive around the park in a John Deer Gator (like a Rhino)visiting all the kids. It was really fun to watch.

The DMV in Sioux Falls is open on Saturdays so we drove into the city and got our new SD drivers licenses. We didn't even have to take a test, what a deal.

We are going to stay here until Monday morning, then on to Wall, SD, home of Wall Drugs. Everyone keeps telling us we can't miss Wall Drugs, so we're looking forward to see what the heck it is. We will also get to see the Bad Lands of South Dakota.

That's all we have for now, until next time....

Kansas and Iowa

Thursday, May 8th ~ after another crazy night of wind and rain in Amarillo, the morning weather looked safe enough the head to Kansas. It was a windy but beautiful trip through lots of green farm land. We even saw some Wild Turkey, Phesants and tons of Rabbits along the way.

We stayed at the Big Band Ponowanie Casino RV Park in Mayetta, KS. The RV Park is located right behind the Casino within walking distance, so that was nice. The weather was cold, windy and rainy the whole time we were there, but we did have a chance to go for a drive with our friends Peggy and Eldon. They are from Kansas, so they showed us a couple of little towns, the hardware store which carries everything you can think of, and drove us around the back roads. We really enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Sunday, May 11th ~ On the road again heading to the Winnebago Mfg. in Forest City, Iowa. We have a 6:45am appointment on Monday, so we spend Sunday night in the parking lot of the service center along with all the other RVers who have appointments. Mike is in hog heaven, so many guys to visit and compare notes with.

Each morning our assigned rep is at our door at 7:00am ready to take the motor home and we're on our own until 3:00pm. Looks like everything will be completed tomorrow afternoon (Thursday), so we'll spend one more night then take off for Mitchell, South Dakota.

Monday we drove to St. Paul, MN to see the Mall of America. Now that is an amazing place. We didn't get to spend as much time there as we would have liked because it was a two hour drive one way and we had to be back to Forest City by 3:00pm. Tuesday they needed to keep the motor home through the night to have the second shift crew do some work, so we had to spend the night in a hotel. We decided to go to Des Moines to have dinner with Jon & Carolyn, friends we met last December at the Ventura RV Resort. We had a great dinner and visit and got to see their beautiful home. Scott & Rich, they have 64 red Corvette and 64 Impala SS, both are beautiful.

Tomorrow we are going on the Winnebago tour and will just hang out around here the rest of the day.

Amarillo, TX

We made it! Weather looked positive so we hooked up and headed to Amarillo yesterday morning. Arrived at the Fort Amarillo RV Resort around 3:30pm and what a neat place. They have the most amazing store here, it's called Lizzie Mae's Mercantile. You could spend hours in there and still not see everything she has in there. It's certainly not your normal tourist trap.

We had wind on the way, but it wasn't too bad. Spent the rest of the afternoon setting up, shopping in Lizzie Mae's then went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Ruby Tequilas. It was soooo good. I think I could live here, in a brick house of course.

Now to the weather ~ The wind started blowing late in the evening and we thought about closing the slides before we went to bed, but we didn't. 11:45pm we were up closing the slides and now not only was it BLOWING, but raining like crazy. We only saw on lightning bolt, but didn't hear any thunder. It rained most of the night, and has been on and off all day.

We found Cadillac Ranch, the cattle field with 10 Cadillacs buried nose down all in a row. Now all we have to do is figure out how we're going to get the mud off our shoes...what a mess. The cattle seem to have enough since to stay away from all the crazy people painting on the cars. It's quite a site.

Tonite we're going to the Big Texan for dinner. Home of the 72oz steak, you know, eat the steak and potato in 1 hour and it's free! We won't be doing that, but we are being picked up by a limo from the restaurant, with bull horns on the hood and driven by a cowboy. Now you can't beat that.

We should be good to go tomorrow, heading out to Topeka, KS. Our plan is to stay there until Sunday morning, then head to Iowa. We're going to stay at the RV park that our friends from Yuma, Elden & Peggy stay during the summer. They are on their way to KS as well, so hopefully we'll be able to see them for a couple of days.

Until next time..

May 5, 2008

We've been in Albuquerque, NM since Monday afternoon. The drive here was nice, but nothing real exciting. Our plan was to leave tomorrow morning for Amarillo, TX, but there have been some severe weather warnings with large hail and high winds in the Amarillo area. We've decided to check the weather channel again when we get up in the morning and if it's still hanging around we'll stay here another night.

The crazy thing is, our plan is to go to Amarillo, TX, then Topeka, KS, ending up in Iowa. Wouldn't you know it, that's exactly where ALL of the storms are hovering. As long as we can get to Forrest City Iowa by May 12th we'll be on schedule, we may have to make a beeline there once the storms blow through. We have an appointment at the Winnebago factory to have quite a few items fixed on the motor home, as well as some services done on the chassy.

Wish us luck.

May 3, 2008

Yesterday we decided to take a ride to Sedona, AZ. I have to say the best part of the whole day was the beautiful drive through the Coconino National Forest. The mountains and trees were beautiful, but it was sure amazing to drive around a curve and bam the rocks were red.

We drove past Slide Rock State Park and it was fun to watch the people climbing on the shelves of red rock down to a stream of beautiful clear water. We would have stopped but we were not dressed for the occasion. It was 51 degrees when we left Williams so we were wearing jeans and long sleeves shirts. By the time we got to Slide Rock it was in the high 70s, so we decided between the heat and the altitude we would just keep going.

Sedona was so nice, we walked around a bit, then had lunch at a restaurant called the Cowboy Club. We felt it was in our best interest to stay out of the shops, so we drove through town and then headed back to Williams. If you're a shopper, Sedona is the place to go!

Today was house cleaning day, inside and out, and this evening we will load up the bikes, hook up the jeep and be ready to head out in the morning. Next stop, Albuqurque.

May 01 2008

Hi this is Mike. Today was just a lazy day here at the Grand Cayon Railway RV Park we'll be here untill sunday morning, arrived here Monday to ride the train to the Canyon and we are now waiting for our mail. Sally and I thought we should have our mail sent to us incase anyone is trying to give us some money..LOL Sally is rapped up in a blanket on the couch as I type this. As the tempture is falling past 37 degrees headed to 28 by morning. I think we'll be gald to head to warmer weather. Good Night friends......

From the Beginning

November 30, 2007 ~ as I left for my last day of work Mike drove the motor home out of our driveway for the last time, heading to the Ventura RV Resort. We had reservations for the month of December, as there was now way we were going to miss Christmas with our kids and new grandbaby Chloe.

December 30, 2007 ~ we headed off to Yuma, AZ to the Las Quintas Oasis RV Resort where we planned to stay for the next few months. We were ready to just relax for a while before we started to travel. We met so many new friends and enjoyed the resort so much that we've decided spend next winter in Yuma as well. The best thing is, it only takes us 5 1/2 hours to drive back to Simi and Ventura to see the kids. In the 4 months we stayed in Yuma we saw the kids and our friends quite often.

As luck would have it, Yuma had a car show in March called Midnight at the Oasis. Our friends Scott & Debbie Campagne and Rich & Karen Mehas from Alta Loma brought their awesome cars down to enter in the show. We had a blast, we rode in a parade through town and went on the poker run with Rich and Karen and were able to attend the dinners and hang out at the show all weekend. It was a real treat for us.

Unfortunately we lost our dog Mandy while we were in Yuma. We were lucky enough to have her for 16 years, and she took to living in the motor home right off. She loved all the new friends she made at the dog run, and it was a great way for us to meet new people as well. Dog people are so friendly and always want to tell you all about their babies. We miss her so much and think about her all the time.

April 21, 2008 ~ we left Yuma and headed to Bullhead City, AZ. We spent the night at our Aunt Lillian’s house and left the next morning for CA to spend a week at Yucaipa Regional Park. We brought Aunt Lillian with us and dropped her off at her friend Ella May’s house in Beaumont. It was Ella May’s 95th birthday and Aunt Lillian didn’t want to miss that party!

We got to see the kids at Matt & Mandi’s house on Tuesday evening. Kimmy drove over from Simi and we all played with Chloe until we pooped her out and she went to sleep.

Saturday we attended Hailey Campagne’s 2nd birthday party. She was so cute and just loved every present she opened. It was wonderful to see all of our good friends, some that we only get to see about once a year. It’s funny how all of the kids have grown up and we haven’t aged a bit.

April 28, 2008 ~ we left Yucaipa and headed to Williams, AZ, which is where we are right now. It is very beautiful here, but we’ve had to get our winter clothes out again.
Cold and very windy, days have been in the mid 50s and nights in the high 30s. We’re not used to the cold, it was in the 90s when we left Yuma.

Tuesday we just messed around the city of Williams and went over to the Deer Farm to feed the deer and check out the other animals. It was pretty old and run down, but we had a good time.


Yesterday we road the Grand Canyon Railway. We boarded at 9:45am and it took about two and a half hours to get there. We enjoyed every minute of the time, besides looking for wildlife along the way, we were entertained by a Hopi Indian singer and a visit from an old west cowboy. We arrived at the Canyon at 12:15pm. We hadn't booked any bus tours, so we did a lot of walking, stopped for lunch, shopped and had an ice cream cone. The Grand Canyon was amazing, when we walked up to the edge, it was breath taking. We saw 5 Condors, two of them flying in the canyon. They are huge, some with wing spans up to 9 feet across.

We boarded the train again at 3:45pm to head home. Our entertainment on the way home was a fiddle player and what a crack up he was. He had people dancing and playing his fiddle. Then all of the sudden two masked cowboys came riding their horses along side of us and one jumped on the train. I guess the rest of his crew was waiting for him on the train because there were 3 of them when they came through each car to rob everyone. It was fun, but they did keep the bills and change that everyone gave them in the robbery, tip money I guess. With everything going on, we were still able to see Elk and Antelope along the way. It was a very nice day.