Days 21 & 22

After enjoying the beauty and the attractions of the Black Hills area, we press on east. These two days are just about driving through the central plains of America. Along the way we stopped at famous Wall Drug Store in the town of Wall, South Dakota.

We also crossed the Missouri River, and drove past The Corn Palace.

If you have an RV you may have heard about Harvest Hosts. It's a web site that puts RV owners in touch with businesses that will allow the RV owner to park in their parking lot for the night, with the understanding that the RV owner will purchase whatever the business offers. So, if it's a winery, then you buy a bottle or two of wine. If it's a farm, then you buy some eggs and vegetables. You get the idea. Staying at a Harvest Host site can make sense if you're traveling many miles and need a stop-over for the night. The downside is that it is usually dry-camping with no hook-ups for electricity or water. So, your RV has to be set-up to be totally self-sufficient. After Wall we continued on to the Frontier Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota. We parked in their lot and took the tour of their cars, tractors and motorcycles as well as other artifacts.

The temperature was in the low 90's and I was happy to fire up our Honda generator so that we could run the Air Conditioner. Well, the generator would run for about 5 minutes and then it would disconnect with an "Overload" error light. Ugh! I restarted the generator and it would again run for a while and then trip again. After 5 or 6 failures we gave up on the generator and the AC. But- I had a back-up strategy! I have been caught in miserable heat in the past and had invested in a swamp-cooler that runs on 12 volts! While it didn't cool the rig to a tolerable level, it did blow cool air on us and made the afternoon bearable. Yea!

By the way, I thought I'd share with you the birthday card that Susan got for me. Does she know me or what?

Tomorrow is another driving day as we head to Centerville, Minnesota, which is a suburb to Minneapolis. We'll spend two nights there so we'll have a day to see the sights of the area, including the Mall of America.