Boy, it has been too long since I posted a blog. We have not been laying around eating bonbons though that does sound kinda good. We have traveled almost 1100 miles since leaving Lower Brule, SD. We went first to our home town, Box Elder, SD, as we had some business to take care of. One of the challenges that we have on the road is ordering things online and having them delivered where we will be 5-7 business days later. This situation happened to us when our wonderful Dyson vacuum needed a replacement part. We decided to send it to Box Elder and just hang around until it came. As it happened Dyson got right on it and it arrived the day after we arrived. We were parked at the Elks Lodge in Rapid City, a nice simple parking spot, but only 30 amp. It was sweltering in Rapid City, hovering around 100* so we only were able to run 1 air conditioner. We were out and about every day and Pansy is OK with the bedroom air going.
The two real highlights of our stay in Rapid City were meeting Sharon and Don DelRosario for dinner and going to Mount Rushmore. We had a delicious dinner with Sharon and Don at a new restaurant, DahKoDa. We talked and talked until I thought the staff might just kick us out. We all posed for pictures in front of the interesting statue of a buffalo in front of the restaurant. This work of art had pieces of cars, keys, nuts and bolts that together made this bison.
The next day we drove to Mount Rushmore. We had gone to this National Park back in the 70’s. There were lots of improvements including a Visitor Center that accurately documented how this mountain carving affected the Native Tribes in this part of South Dakota. The evening show was very patriotic and colorful. The movie that was shown explained the reasons that each of the Presidents was chosen for the mountain.
While we were waiting for the show to begin we had the best time ‘people watching’. One of the families, an obvious military family, sat a couple of rows in front of us. The two children each had binoculars and digital cameras – so did mom and dad only the more pricey models. The kids would share the pictures, were so well behaved, and a joy to sit behind, unlike some of the other children completely out of control of their parents.
Just before the show began another family took the bench just in front of us. Most of the children were redheads. A couple of the girls were blonds which reminded us of Tom’s Mom’s family. She was one of 11 living children, most were redheads and 2 blonds. At our family reunion in Fresno we know most of the redheads at the Park and Zoo belong to our reunion.
The final event of the evening was the invitation to all service men and women who have served in the Military. The stage was full and as we stood to honor these men and women each stepped forward and told their name, service, and rank. The flag was then lowered by 6 volunteers from the group. It was a very special closing of this patriotic evening.
We left Rapid City for Lewistown, MT. We stopped overnight at Miles City, MT. We didn’t even unhook the Jeep. When we tried to bring in our front roadside slide, it wouldn’t retract. After calling CoachNet and checking with the owners of the RV park, Dave from Big Sky RV Service came over. Dave, Tom and Dave’s helper, the put their back into lifting the slide as I pushed the button to retract and it came right in. Since then we have not had any problems.
We traveled to Lewistown, MT, for the Golden Spike Rally.
More on that next blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Love hearing your comments. I will delete all spam.