Retirement Travels

We woke up on Saturday morning at 4:30am and it was pouring. We are parked behind the Winery in a thick grassy field close to where they dug a line going out to their new building. We were worried about soft ground and getting stuck so we got up, closed the slides and stowed the jacks (all from the inside 👍😀) and moved the rig to solid ground. We waited until light to head out.  While waiting for daylight Casen slept on our bed with all his bedding from the pull out couch and Ernie went back to sleep on the couch. I think we will be ready for bed early tonight. We got to Berlin about 2:30pm and was glad to see there was an open spot at Riverside Park. It was a great weekend! We saw @macelyjace (Jake), my parents, my sister and nieces. A big thank you to Megan for covering 6 weeks of gray in my hair. Casen was really happy because he got to go swimming at my sister's neighbors house. We left Berlin on Sunday around 1:00pm, we knew that there was storms rolling in and wanted to get...

Today was a 300 mile drive day. Nothing really exciting except our rig got its first bath. Blue Beacon has been the recommended place to have RV's washed. We found one in Sioux Falls, SD.  Here is a before... After... The drivers side looked great! We were not real happy with the quality of the wash. It looks like the crew on the right side (passenger) were not as good as the crew on the left side. The front looks good but probably won't stay that way long. You would think they could have rinsed better. And this is what the entire passenger side looked like. Our stop for the night is a Harvest Host Round Lake Vineyard and Winery. They were having an event so we were not able to stay on the grounds close to the lake. We did do some wine tasting and had a spectacular dinner. We are parked to the right of this vineyard. We sat outside for a bit at dusk to listen to the band (which is really good) but it is pretty humid so we retired inside once it got dark. Tomorrow is a 400+ mile...

Today we took our time checking out of the RV park. Since we will be without hookups for the next couple of days, I did a couple loads of laundry and a little cleaning. We stopped at Wall Drug. I found a couple of small signs to put on top of the slider trim pieces. I also found this one to put under the front dash cupboards. Our stop for the day is at Pioneer Auto Show & Antique Town in Murdo, South Dakota. It is also a Harvest Host so we are staying in their parking lot for the night. It's a pretty cool place that has a lot of stuff. There are 38 separate buildings of old cars, motorcycles, bikes, antiques of all sorts. Dukes of Hazard car and the horn works. Ford Shelby Mustang This is an old motorhome.  A Ford Jeep Our South Dakota is on the map.

Tuesday we arrived in Rapid City, SD. We stayed in an RV park that had full hookups and after 5 days without any, there was plenty to do once we were hooked up. I was happy to be able to get laundry and bedding washed. The RV park is only 16 miles from Mount Rushmore so we decided to check out the lighting ceremony they had at night. Casen was excited to see what it looks like and wouldn't look up until we were at the entrance. They are doing construction where the amphitheater is so they didn't have the traditional lighting ceremony but they did have a flag ceremony and asked active duty service men or retired veterans to participate. Ernie was so glad I coaxed him to join. The flag ceremony was awesome. After the ceremony we sang the National Anthem and the Ranger performing the ceremony shook hands with all those that participated. On Wednesday our day began at the  Crazy Horse Monument. We went into the theater and heard the the story of Korcak Ziolkowski and his life work...