Arriving South Dakota

Friday - May 14, 2021 

After a chilly night (38 degrees) and a good night’s sleep, we were ready to get on with our exploration of this part of the country.  We liked our campground (Trailing Edge in Limon, Co), especially after 3 nights on a parking lot.  It was 43 when we got up this morning, time for jackets and jeans.  We actually turned on the furnace last night.

We saw 6 deer right at the edge of town, and 2 more during our drive.  However, in Colorado today we saw 44 pronghorn, and an additional 16 in Nebraska.  

 The windmills we saw yesterday in the distance were right by us today. 

We kept seeing this wall of clouds in front of us, getting bigger and bigger as we traveled toward it.  All of a sudden, we found ourselves in dense fog, with a little rain thrown in.  So with very low visibility, our antelope count went way down.

We finally cleared the fog, and the sun came back out.  We finally found a pull out for a break, so we walked around a bit.  I was hoping an accommodating antelope would mosey over for a photo op, but no such luck.

We entered the Pawnee National Forest and shortly thereafter crossed the state line into Nebraska (10:55).  We saw miles and miles of grasslands, rolling hills, cattle pasture.  Very few trees.  But when we got near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, we began to see a change in the terrain – actual bluffs.

Then came the Ogala National Forest, just before we crossed into South Dakota at 1:55 p.m.   We got to Hot Springs but ran out of signage so, after another u-turn,  we got directions when we fueled here.  On to our destination, we arrived at Wind Cave National Park at 3:20.  Joe said, “now our vacation begins.”  As soon as we entered the park, 4 buffalo greeted us!  After Joe stopped and got some pictures of them laying down, he honked to try to get them to move, but they didn’t.  After we pulled away, we wondered if they were statues.  But then we saw 2 more right away, and then another one.  And another one, which crossed the road in front of us and posed for a picture.

We drove passed the Visitor Center and on to the campground but didn’t find a spot, so we unhooked the jeep and went back to the Visitor Center.  When Joe had called a month ago, he was told they didn’t take reservations, it was first come-first serve, but he had worked there for 35 years and they had never been full.  Well, guess what.  They were full!  The ranger told us of another place, in the Black Hills National Forest, that might be available.  He said they had just opened that day but it was about 40 minutes away.  So we went back to the RV, Joe got it turned around, and we both drove to the national forest.  Besides the host, we are the only ones here.  But the sign on the highway says “area closed” so that might be the reason.  Anyhow, we are set up here for 2 nights at least, dry camping and no phone signal (no internet at all).  That's really the worst thing about this dry camping, no phone service.  

After we got situated, we drove back into Custer for dinner (lunch never happened today because we couldn’t find a pull-out).  On the way back to the campground, Joe, of course, wanted to drive some dirt roads looking for deer.  Well, that part was successful.  We saw 54 deer on our drive.  Earlier, he had noticed a dirt road that appealed to him (before we got to Hot Springs), and I pointed out that it had a gate.  He said, “I brought my bolt cutters with me in case they try to pull stuff like that.”  But he forgot his “authorized personnel” hat. 

We got back from our drive just before dark, about 7:30.  It got to be a long day, but we are looking forward to the next few days of sightseeing in the jeep.

We noticed in the grasslands that there were no cattle grazing there, so we wondered if that isn’t allowed.  Without internet, Joe was unable to research that tonight. 

 Joe really struggles with deciding between driving the touristy drives and seeing the touristy things, and doing his own exploring, driving the dirt roads and finding his own sights to see.  Every dirt road has his name on it.  We will see which struggle wins out tomorrow.

 Thursday - M:ay 13, 2021

After 3 days of Albuquerque, we finally got out of New Mexico.  It was 54 degrees when we got out of bed this morning.  With our new working brakes, we got on the road about 7:30, a good start for us.  We saw 3 hot air balloons as we were pulling out, which is practically an icon for New Mexico.  We crossed the state line into Colorado 3 hours later, at the top of Raton Pass, at 11:30.  As we came down off the pass, we could see the snow-capped Rocky Mountains in the distance. 

We stopped for sodas just a few miles later in Trinidad.   It was a windy 49 degrees, a bit chilly for us in our shorts.  The temperature for the New Mexico part of the drive today was mostly in the 50s, with occasional drops into the high 40s.  After we went over Raton Pass (elevation 7818), and into Colorado it warmed up in the 70s for the most part, and we drove at elevations below 5000 ft.  We saw lots of pronghorn antelope today, approximately 220 (we tried to count them all).  95% of them were on Joe's side of the road, and I never got a good picture.  180 of them we saw in the last 100 miles of New Mexico.  We only saw about 40 in Colorado.  But we did see 11 deer in Colorado.  Happy to be watching for wildlife again.  There were elk and bear warning signs when we came off Raton Pass but we didn't see any of them.

From Trinidad, we cut over to Colorado 71, which took us over part of the original Santa Fe Trail (lot of cattle drives from Texas on this trail),

 and across the Comanche National Grasslands.  I expected the grasslands to have foot-high grass waving in the wind, but maybe we were too early in the season.  Miles and miles of open prairie.  Lots of cattle too.  

As we neared Limon, our destination for this evening, we passed a house with 3 lilac bushes blooming.  Of course, we were passed before I could get Joe to stop.  But from there on, lilacs were added to my BOLO (be on the lookout) list.  We did pass one bush in Limon but it was barely budded out, so I'm hoping for more lilacs in my future.

We saw several solar farms today, but only one windmill farm, which was huge, covered the entire horizon just before Limon.  As open as this area is, I'm surprised there weren't more.

We reached our campground in Limon at 3:45, and Joe was ready to be done for the day.  408 miles today.  We hope to reach our first real destination tomorrow, Elk Mountain Campground in Wind of the Caves National Park, Hot Springs, South Dakota.  We plan to park there for 5 days and explore the area in the jeep, including Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, and the Badlands. 

Today was fairly uneventful, except for a tight squeeze at the fuel stop when Joe scratched a panel on the side of the RV when he got too close to the pump. But all in all, a peaceful drive.  Just what we needed after Monday's excitement.  

Fixing Brake Line

Wednesday - M;ay 12, 2021

Well, progress is slow.  We had hoped to get moving this afternoon, but the parts didn't get here from Denver until about 4:00, and Kevin showed up a little after 6:00 to start installing them.  Had we known, we would have done a little more exploring today, but instead, we waited all day at the RV, except for a quick run to Walmart around lunch time.  But things are looking up.  Approximately 2 hours later, with Joe's assistance, and $767 later, we are back in business. We have new brake lines on the front,  Kevin was a great guy, very professional and knowledgeable, and we think we are roadworthy now.  

All things considered, things could have been a lot worse.  We missed the collision, we made it safely to this parking lot, we have been very comfortable here and Cabela's has not bothered us at all, even through this will be our third night here.  The temperatures have been great and we have not had to use the A/C or the furnace in the RV, and the solar panels Joe installed shortly before we left have provided enough electricity that we have not had to run the generator much, and still been able to keep his sleep machine running all night and watch TV.  But we are certainly ready to move on, and hope the rest of the trip is much smoother.

Our Grand Plan is to go to the South Dakota, then North Dakota, then probably across Minnesota and Wisconsin and maybe the Upper Peninsula of Michigan again (we really like that area), then down through either Ohio or Indiana, depending on how much time we have to get to Florida by the 4th of July.  Lots of miles ahead of us, and hopefully lots of interesting things to see.

Still in Albuquerque

 Tuesday - May 11, 2021

Well, we didn't expect to have a "down day" on the second day out, but sometimes things are just not under our control.  Our situation is not progressing very quickly.  The service man (Kevin) showed up early (10:30)  but didn't have the brake line.  He went to Napa, and they can't get it until tomorrow morning, so we will are spending the day here on the Cabela's parking lot. 

 But all was not wasted.  Surprisingly, we went for a scenic drive in the jeep.  We did the Turquoise Trail, which is a national scenic byway on the east side of the Sandia Mountain Range.  We had actually done this drive once before, we think in the motorhome, when we explored this area several years ago.  But this time we got to make a few stops, and take a couple side roads.  This is not really that exciting a drive, but we did stop in the little old coal mining town of Madrid for lunch.  This town is famous as the inspiration for the Disney theme parks because Walt Disney came here and they had so many Christmas lights lighting up the town that airlines rerouted their paths so the passengers could see the lights from the air (that's what the sign said, anyway).  They had a display of boots on the electric line, and we must have been here before because JW was carved into the mantle below the buffalo head.

Joe had some kind of mad chili burger (New Mexico likes their chilis), I went safe with chicken enchiladas.   We walked around a little but most of the shops were closed, either seasonal or for good, we don't know.  

We ventured on down the road to the town of Cerrillos, which has been the setting for several motion pictures including Young Guns.

  There was a state park here too, which we drove through, but it was mainly hiking and biking trails. There was an old Catholic church that still holds regular Sunday masses, but it was locked. It had a little courtyard with statues but it needed a little grooming.

 Finishing our drive on the Trail, as we came back to I-25, we saw the commuter train that runs between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.  We actually took that train ride on our other visit here.  We wondered about the COVID restrictions since it only had 2 cars.

We stayed on a frontage road instead of getting on I-25, and made another side trip to Cochiti Lake, which took us past the Tent Rocks National Monument road.  Both of these things were on Indian reservation land and both were closed.  There was a huge dam along the lake, but the lake itself looked pretty low.

Joe had read about the Tent Rocks and really wanted to see them, but not this trip.  On our continuing journey, we crossed the Rio Grande coming out of Cochiti Lake, and it was running pretty good.  When we have crossed this river in Texas, its not much more than a trickle.  

We finally finished our drive, and got back to the RV about 6:00.  The weather has been great.  It was supposed to be windy tonight but we never noticed much so it wasn't as bad as predicted.  So now we just wait for Keven, our mobile RV repair guy to come tomorrow with the new brake line.

Hitting the Road after COVID

 

May 10, 2021 - Monday

Finally, it’s US! After our year+ absence from traveling ,we are finally on the road again. We see all kinds of campers here on our streets every day going someplace and have been awaiting our turn. Today was the day.

Here is Joe beside his new pride and joy -- his new (1999) Jeep, so he can drive all the dirt roads we pass by.

We got a good start, left the house right after 7:00 a.m., after a hard week of packing and loading, both inside and outside. We were blessed to have nieces Dana and Stacey come for a visit the weekend before, and they cleaned the inside of the RV from top to bottom. They will never know how helpful that was, and how much we appreciated it.

Our breakfast plan was to stop in Payson at the casino just to eat, but when we got there, the entrance we always use, next to the big parking lot, was closed. Driving back in front of the hotel, we missed the turn-in for that parking lot and the only other driveway was exit only (and I got ticketed once before for entering that one), so we left there and headed on into Payson. We knew there were fast food places (McDonalds and Jack in the Box) on large parking lots, but we were hoping for something better. Well, that didn’t work—we ran out of choices, so we ended up having breakfast sandwiches at Circle K just outside of Heber about 9:45 (and they were not wonderful). But it made for a quick stop (fuel and breakfast), and we got to I-40 in Holbrook just after 11:00 a.m.

 We hit the New Mexico state line at 12:15, stopped at a Cracker Barrel at the Gallop exit about 12:40 for lunch, and continued across the state. The only scenic picture I took today was of this pot on the exit ramp in Gallop. 

 It was very windy, and when Joe would hit open air, he had to fight the wheel to keep us on the road. (Good thing he replaced that power steering pump last week). Depending on timing, we thought we might stay in Albuquerque (I had found a Cabela’s that allowed overnight parking), or try to get a few miles further north if it wasn’t too late and if we could find a campground. We stopped again for fuel just at the western edge of Albuquerque about 3:50, with time change, that was 4:50. When we pulled out of there, Joe went the wrong way so we had to find a place to turn around to get back to I-40, but no big deal. So we were in 5:00 traffic now, and just as we got to the I-40/I-25 split, and were actually on the merge ramp (single lane for each direction), the 3 cars in front of us wrecked. Just in front of us. I didn't scream, but I did yell Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!  And Joe got us Whoa'ed.  (Too many horse people in our family.)    The lead car was behind a truck and she said it was wobbling all over the road in front of her, so she stopped. But the two cars behind her did not stop. While the demolition derby was taking place in front of us, Old Truck Driver Joe somehow got us stopped. . My Hero! He stomped on the brakes and managed to get us stopped before we added to the carnage in front of us. But he blew the brake line on the right front tire on the RV. The wrecked cars were blocking the road, since it was a single lane and they were not able to drive their vehicles. We sat there for several minutes, got out and assessed our situation to make sure we didn’t have any damage (and we didn’t, except for brake fluid and a busted brake line). Then a semi turned onto our merge ramp, I kept trying to wave him over to the merge ramp going south, but he wouldn’t go there. He stopped, again in the middle of the road, and told one of the drivers he needed to move his car over so he wasn’t blocking traffic. Well, that guy was limping (he has said he was ok, but he wasn’t), but his car wouldn’t move. So the semi driver and Joe pushed that car over to the right side, in front of the other wrecked car, which also wouldn’t move. Now a wrecker shows up, has to park behind the semi, and comes looking for the semi driver, who is pushing the wrecked car. Then the cops show up, park behind and beside the wrecker. However, since they had been able to push one of the wrecked cars over to the side, as the cops were walking up, Joe said, “let’s get out of here before they want to talk to us, we will be here all night.” So we pulled out. The wreck cost us about an hour.  And a new brake line.

But, with our blown brake line, now we basically had no brakes except the emergency brake. We limped onto I-25 and headed north, looking for some kind of garage or gas station to pull into, but there wasn’t anything. So I pulled up the directions to the Cabela’ s, and we literally limped along on I-25, maybe 5 miles, to our exit. Again, we turned the wrong way (the GPS was too slow in giving directions and Joe couldn’t make quick adjustments), had to turn onto a side street and limp through a parking lot to get turned back around, then back onto the highway, across the interstate overpass and down that ramp to the parking lot where the Cabela’s was located. Boy, were we glad to get there! Joe parked, crawled under the RV, determined he didn’t have the right tools, and called a mobile RV service. So we are spending the night on the Cabela’s parking lot, and have an 11:00 appointment tomorrow with a mobile repair service guy. Hopefully, he will get us moving again. I’m sure it won’t be cheap.

We are parked practically in the shadow of the beautiful Sandia Mountain Range so at least we have some scenery.  The temperature is great, and we are camping free, so things could be worse.

So, on our first day, we drove 405 miles, were basically on the road from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 (6:00 p.m. NM time). It was in the 70s all day, and sunny. And we had more excitement that we wanted. Hopefully day 2 will be much smoother.