dpandorf

Maybe we should have looked at the day of the week on the calendar to have prepared ourselves for the day.

We rounded everybody up and headed to Mount Rushmore for an afternoon visit. (Its an 8 mile drive from the campground.)

The weather was gorgeous initially but as we left the park you could see things a brewing in the sky. Of course I had the hair brained idea of going the long way home via the Needles drive.

Well all, you know what broke out on...

Today is finally our first down day. We'll be staying here for 2 weeks at the Rafter J campground. However, I've got this big box in the dining area I've got to do something with, i.e.; new toilet installation.

After two trips to the local hardware store in Hill City, SD (3 miles each way) the toilet is installed and no leaks or smells. Mamma is very happy now and maybe some relaxation is in order.

Finally, our last day of major driving before some down time. But I hear Cabelas calling us as we drive by Mitchell, SD.

Our oldest son, Derek aged 12, needs new hiking shoes and we figured why not shoot two birds with one shell so to speak at Cabelas plus there's a Super Walmart right next door.

We got out of there without too much damage however, the weather became a factor on down the road.

West of Chamberlain, SD we hit the thunderstorms. Thought...

Another late start, but we had some assistance from one of the RV park full timers on helping solve our toilet leak. We determined that the we would have to remove the toilet and probably have to put a new seal and not telling what other parts we'd need.

So looking at our trusty RV Travel Atlas we were able to ascertain that a Camping World was along our day's route in Council Bluffs, IA.

Rather than messing with repairing the toilet we decided to just buy a new one....

We thought we'd get an early start, but no it didn't happen. However, we decided again to get a little farther than our original plan. Our total driving distance to Hill City, SD from our home base is around 1,600 miles and we decided to try and do 400 a day.

So today we got to the Trailside RV Park on the east side of Kansas City.

At our first diesel stop they had a weigh station. I've never weighed our rig and the place wasn't busy. So after filling up and everybody...