Here we are, on the road: We’re “home” in Rapid City, SD

Sunday, July 18, 2010 Lorraine’s report

Hello from Hart Ranch RV Park in Rapid City, South Dakota. We got here yesterday afternoon. We will have to move sometime this morning, since we had this site for only one night. Chuck made reservations to be here until Thursday, thinking we would have one site the whole time. The park made three reservations for us to be here until Thursday. I don’t know if we’ll have to move three times in the six days we plan on being here; I sure hope not.

Since last time I wrote, we met up with our good friends, Dave and Sandy in Prior Lake, MN at Dakota Meadows Casino. They were thoughtful enough to bring their 40 foot Allegro Bus to Dakota Meadows and parked right next to us. They have a beautiful town home here in the area and we could have commuted back and forth, but Chuck and I really appreciated having them so close. Thank you both for doing this, your many kindnesses meant the world to us and we really enjoyed our visit together. Thank you!!!

We sure had a fun time, Chuck and Dave went off together and did their thing, while Sandy and I did ours. We shopped until we dropped, one day at the Mall of America, and a bunch of other malls, too. I had my hair done one day.

We went to the casino once where we all lost. Then Chuck took me back the last day, he played a bit then left. I stayed on, got down to the last of my money, and then won it all back, even from the first time when I was there. One day we took Misty in for grooming, she came back all pretty with a bow in her hair.

Dave/Sandy, Chuck/I and Mike (Mike and Linda from CA), went out to dinner one night, Linda was in CA at her grand daughter’s birthday, so Mike was batching it there at Dakota Meadows. We cooked together, inviting Mike to eat with us.

Another evening, Dave/Sandy went to dinner with the group they go to dinner with every week and they invited us along. We enjoyed a nice dinner with two other couples they go out with.

One night we played “Pass the Love” with Dave coming out the big winner.

Chuck and I decided to stay over two more days until Friday with Dave/Sandy; they were planning on leaving Thursday, and then they decided to stay one more night. We were all enjoying each other’s company so much, we didn’t want to leave.

Linda came back from CA on Wednesday evening and had asked Mike to ask us to stay so she could see us, so the last evening, Thursday, we had another Bar B Q and got to visit with Linda/Mike.

Friday morning we all said our goodbyes and headed our different ways. Dave and Sandy were home by the time we were on the road for fifteen minutes. Mike and Linda were headed south, and we headed west to here.

Friday night we were in Mitchell, SD. We got in by three, set up, and Chuck washed the bugs off the windshield. There are tons of grasshoppers and different bugs that have been covering the windshield, top to bottom, both days.

There was a rodeo going on, but it was still 95 at five pm, too hot for us. We had dinner, and then decided to go to the Corn Palace in down town Mitchell.

The Corn Palace is a big building that is decorated with various colored corn and various grasses that are grown right there around Mitchell. The decorations are of scenes, events, and such. The Corn Palace was started in 1892, when Mitchell was twelve years old. The townspeople of Mitchell were trying to get the capital to be there in Mitchell, instead of Pierre, so they came up with the idea, funding and brought it to life within a year.

To celebrate the inauguration of the Corn Palace, the townspeople brought famous entertainers to the Corn Exposition, as it was called then. The first was John Phillip Sousa and his famous band. The Corn Exposition was a success from the first, making $3000.00 the first year; big money in those times. The tradition continues to today.

On the way to RC, we must have passed a hundred signs for Wall Drug; so when we got to it, we stopped for an hour and half or so. Wall drug is a huge, block long tourist trap with everything and anything you didn’t know you needed. Of course, like everyone there, I bought a couple of things, then on to RC.

So far, we’ve come 1770 miles from Hershey, PA to here. We have also gained back two hours we lost headed east. It took me a long time to adjust to loosing those four hours.

And while we had several nice days with the temperature only in the low 80s with a nice breeze, we are still having hot days with the temperatures in the mid to upper 90s, with lots of humidity.

We were fighting a strong head wind all the time we were on the road yesterday, made me a little seasick. In the coach Saturday it read 100 degrees on the mirror-really hot.

Also, we had one moderate thunder/lightening/wind and rain storm while in Prior Lake, where the sirens went off, warning people to take cover. Fortunately, Sandy and I were at her townhouse getting mail, so we sat out the storm.

Today, July 18, 2000 was the day I found my breast cancer. I didn’t know what my God had in store for me, but I trusted in Him, and He has been there for me. Thank you my lord and savior for all you have given me, family, friends, at times decent health and Your constant love!

Until next time………….Lorraine

7/18/10 Chuck’s report

Ten years ago today is the date Lorraine found a lump in her breast that turned out to be cancerous. To say our lives have changed since then would be an understatement. She made it through three surgeries, chemo therapy and radiation therapy. She went through a pretty rough time but she now does the cancer walk as a survivor, yea! I doubt we would be fulltiming if she hadn’t gone through this. You never know what will happen and we wanted to see/do/experience while we both were still young enough and in good health.

Ok, a bit of an explanation about us being home in Rapid City, South Dakota. We lived in Washington state until we retired and bought our motorhome. We then made a major decision to move our domicile to South Dakota, for a number of reasons. South Dakota doesn’t have a state income tax (neither does Washington), the sales tax on our motorhome and car was only 3% (vs. 9% in Washington), car and health insurance is cheaper here them some other places we checked and there are 4 big mail forwarding businesses located around the state. We decided to go with the mail forwarding here in Rapid City so we use their address as our mailing address, we have SD driver’s license, we vote here and even have a library card from here. So this is our home even though we haven’t ever really lived here. I did get called for jury duty once but called them and they understood we were on the road and released me from having to report.

We left Iowa last Saturday and headed North to meet with our friends, Dave and Sandy. They lived in the Twin City area, retired, sold their home, bought a motorhome and lived in it fulltime for two years. Last year they found a home for sale in their old neighborhood and bought it. They did some remolding before heading South for the winter last year then moved into their new home this spring. But they decided to bring their motorhome out and stay next to us which made our visiting much easier. We really enjoyed spending a week with these two nice folks, they went out of their way to make us feel very welcome.

We had reservations at Dakotah Meadows campground in Prior Lake not too far from their home. This is one of the businesses the Shakopee Indian tribe have in the area, they also have two casinos. I guess they are a small tribe but they are one of the richest in the nation per capita. Each tribal member received over $800,000 last year from money their businesses made, mostly from the casino. Dave said lots of people try to become tribal members but they aren’t allowed in, wonder why.

Another couple of our good friends from California, Mike/Linda, are traveling around the country with much the same itinerary as us but they were either a week or so ahead or behind us. The second morning in Minnesota I got an email from Mike telling us Linda had to fly home for her grand daughter’s birthday so they headed up to Minneapolis and he happened to be staying at - - Dakotah Meadows. Small world, he was only two rows from our site.

Lorraine and Sandy were able to spend some time together too, they went shopping a couple of days, once to the Great Mall. We had a couple of Bar-B-Qs too, Dave doing the cooking, of course. And we went to dinner with some friends of Dave and Sandy one time too. We all went to the casino one night for dinner and gambling, everyone lost I think. Lorraine and I went back one afternoon and she won back all she had lost before and I broke even for the day, not too bad.

Back in April we changed out our front TV and was carrying the old one, which still works good, in our car. Dave used to own a tool and die machine shop so I took advantage of his knowledge and access to tools and asked him to design and build a bracket for hooking up the TV in the basement of the motorhome. So now I think we are done with all the modification we planned for this year, yea. Thanks Dave, your design works, I checked out the TV today and everything seemed to be riding ok and the TV works.

But mostly we were able to just sit around and enjoy each other’s company. The temperature wasn’t as hot, mostly in the low 90s. We were parked such that we had shade either from either their or our coach, depending on the time of the day. So we sat around and solved all the world’s problem. I think Dave should run for Congress or maybe even president and hire me as his aide, we sure knew the answers to all the woes of the world!

So we enjoyed not only spending time with Dave/Sandy but also with Mike a couple of times and Linda for one evening before we all left our separate ways on Friday. Dave/Sandy went back to their house, Mike/Linda drove to a Winnebago Rally in Iowa and we headed out to Rapid City.

The first night out from Minnesota we made it to Mitchell, SD, home of the World’s Only Corn Palace. We noticed the temperature was reading 100F while we were on the road. Once we made it to our campground for the night, got set up and washed the bugs (lots and lots of grasshoppers) off the front, we just rested for awhile. There was a rodeo in town that night but it was too hot for us so we drove over to the Corn Palace. This is a large building that they decorate each year using grasses and different colored corn. They have a new theme each year so they tear the old decorations down, put up a pattern up and fill in the spots, sort of a paint by corn painting. Well worth a stop if you are ever in the area, admission is free too.

Next day we got everything ready and headed West. As anyone who has ever driven though South Dakota can attest, there are signs about Wall Drug starting at least 300 mile away. This is another tourist stop that should be on your list if you ever drive through the area. They have more stuff that you didn’t know you needed here and they still have “Free Ice Water”. We bought a couple of tee shirts and headed out of town, too hot for us.

We are now staying at Hart Ranch, a large working ranch that has a RV campground, golf course, restaurants and such. We are members of RPI, another of the many camping organizations that are available. This one allows us to stay here for $10/day without being a member. We have stayed here before, a very nice place. This time, however, they had to make three reservations for us for the 6 days we are here so we have to moves sites twice, the first one happened this morning. It isn’t too hard to move but given a choice, we would rather stay put for the whole time. Oh well, can’t have everything all the time.

While here in Rapid City, we need to get our vehicle licenses renewed, get re-registered for voting and other stuff. So we will be doing some running around to get everything accomplished. We really like Mt. Rushmore and will probably go there at least one time, maybe even hit the night time fireworks display once too.

We plan on leaving here Friday morning, heading West. I haven’t worked out our stops along the way but should have a rough idea by tomorrow. I figure we will be back in Washington by the first of August if not a couple of days sooner. Looking forward to some cooler temperatures, I hear it was a cool, wet spring back home this year. We’ll probably hang around there for 6 weeks before heading South once again. What a life!!

So with that, I guess I should add a few pictures and close this up.

Travel pictures. They sure grow a lot of corn and soy beans back here.