Falling Off the Edge

Here we are in Box Elder, South Dakota and it is the same weather as Seattle. It's raining. It's gray. It's chilly. But, it IS South Dakota and it's a Sunday and we don't have to pack up the motorhome and head for home because Ray has to go to work tomorrow. No,we don't. It hasn't quite sunk in yet because we've been so busy and had 3 long travel days with myriad "adventures". Where to start? Hmmm. Although we had practiced hooking up the tow dolly, putting the car on the dolly, taking it off the dolly and removing the the dolly from the motorhome, (which process takes up a huge amount of space and more time than you'd believe) we had never traveled with the dolly for a considerable length of time. Ray diligently checked the tire straps, winching tighter if needed. The car and the dolly seem to follow along behind the motorhome just fine, albeit at a distance from the front seats and the rear-view monitor. The reality of unhooking car and dolly is not as simple as it appeared from our practice session. That dolly seems to be intent on frustrating us and possibly injuring us as often as possible. The first night out we stayed in Coeur d'Alene in a lovely small rv park called Tamarack. We got in rather late, decided to just leave the tow dolly and car attached and proceeded to settle in as usual. In the morning, when Ray needed to unload the van so we could run an errand, he discovered that the front tow bar part was raised too high to get the straps off the tires, because the special wrench thingy wouldn't fit between the tire and the fender of the car. Ray's finger nearly got trapped and he'd have been badly hurt! Eventually, he figured it all out and we were able to run our errand. Lesson learned. Do not raise the motorhome unless you have unhooked the dolly. It seemed like we hooked up again with only the usual folderol. Of we go to Sunrise Campground in Bozeman, Montana. Get in lateish because of the late start due to Dolly troubles and the time it took to complete our errand. We decided to leave everything attached and discovered we were already level. Ran out the slides, hooked up utilities and went to bed. In the morning, we are in the process of breaking camp and Ray has run in the large slides but when he tried to retract the bedroom slide, it would not move. Nothing, not a sound, not a click, not anything but sitting still. You can't go down the interstate with your bedroom hanging out, so we unloaded the storage area under the bed and Ray had a look. Can't see anything much wrong, except one part that moves when you side the bed out isn't moving. He can't fix it, so we call Good Sam Travel Assistance Tech Support and the very nice man who answered the phone talked Ray through the procedure to crank the bed in by hand. We had to unload the entire storage space under the bed for Ray to be able to get the bed cranked all the way in. Then we put all the stuff back under the bed. Good news! We packed more efficiently and have some extra room under there. Bad news, we're late starting out for what was going to be a very long day anyway. More bad news: the pantry is packed with a rather odd assortment of stuff and nothing seems to go together to make something that sounds edible. I know I'm the one who packed it, but I can't figure out how I chose the items. Plus, we ran out of bread. Can't even make a sandwich. Off to Box Elder, South Dakota, our new home of record. We got here about 10 p.m. due to the very late start we made out of Bozeman. It's dark. It's particularly dark in this little campground because there are no streetlights here. Well, there was one, but it doesn't work, apparently. They put us in a space second from the end, which requires a sharp turn for a rig as long as ours to get into the space and some backing up, so it's off with the tow dolly and car again. Well. Tow Dolly apparently hates us, because she wasn't letting go of that car without a fight. Somehow, one tire was stuck tight on that dolly and under so much pressure we couldn't even loosen the straps because to do that, you have to crank one more time with the ratchety thingy and then press a certain place and it's supposed to back up one notch, and then you repeat until it's loose enough to remove the safety chains and the straps. Too tight already. Couldn't budge the ratchet. Ray even stood on the rachet lever. We ended up having to let some air out of the stuck tire until the pressure was off the chains and the straps. The other side behaved much better. So then we've got a van in the street with a mushy tire but we decided it had enough air to go as far as I had to go. I drove around the campground whilst Ray maneuvered into the site, and yes, it did require backing up. You just can't get a 35 foot motorhome around a 20 foot corner. We park, we level up, Ray connects electricity only because the camp host told us we'd have to rearrange on the site today (we were not far enough in for another moho to be in behind us-they really pack them in here). Out go the front slides. Time for the bedroom slide. Nothing. Now it goes neither in nor out. The clothes are trapped in the closet and in the drawers. But we can still get into the bed and it being 11 pm or later, we do just that. And oh, yes. Somewhere, sometime along the way, someone punched a nice round hole in the back bumper of the minivan. We have no idea when it happened or where. It's about as big as a lemon, I'd say. We're moved the motorhome up a few feet, reconnected all the utilities, turned on the propane so we can cook. We enjoyed a home cooked breakfast. I even took a shower after breakfast and discovered that instead of turning on both heaters for my shower, I'd turned them both off. The end of the shower was COLD. Note to self: Do not adjust the utility settings without your glasses on. We are settled here for the next 35 or so days. We don't have to deal with Treacherous Dolly for that many days. Whoopie! Now, I had researched Box Elder before we came here and found out Box Elder has a Chinese restaurant, a coffee stand and a burger place, a police department consisting of 5 officers and not much else. And an Air Force Base. There are less than 9,000 people in Box Elder. Hmm, I thought, this is a small town. I therefore envisioned a quiet country setting, a spacious campground with trees and grass and large sites with picnic tables. Room for lawn chairs and grills and outdoor relaxing in the shade, a dog park.(but with an excellent wireless connection and a great satellite dish view) Nothing could be further from the truth. The campground is tiny, the sites are tiny, the grass is tiny, I can see 2 trees and a scrawny tree impersonator from the living room window. Those are the only trees in any direction. We could hand over the Grey Poupon with stretching too much. Talk about a shattered dream! On the plus side, we do have an excellent satellite dish view, there being virtually no trees in this part of South Dakota. And we have excellent wireless because we are in a busy urban area. Someone did not notice, having not checked out the satellite view on Google Maps while researching, that while this spot may well be in Box Elder, dinky little town, across the street is Rapid City, a large and bustling place. I cannot convey our shock when, topping the last hill between ourselves and our destination, we saw a vast valley absolutely, positively filled with lights. We were flabbergasted, having been envisioning something altogether different and even diametrically opposed to what lay revealed before us. Interstate 90 runs about a football field's width behind our motorhome. We get an excellent hearing of the semis on I-90! Which semis, btw, are almost non-existent on I-90 during the day because they are all busy roaring by in the dead of the night. But we'll get used to the semis in a few nights. No real problem there. The 2 feet of struggling grass which separates "us" from "them" on both sides is a little harder to get used to. On the other hand, we certainly will have opportunity to meet the neighbors and their dogs and will no doubt memorize the sides of the rigs that will be our "view" for the next while. Soon we will be able to tell one brand from another just by the graphics on the sides. Hey, it's a skill. We're only citified on two sides, this apparently being the outer edge of both Box Elder and Rapid City. To the north and east, it's fields of green. I don't know where they have hidden the rest of Box Elder and its Chinese restaurant, coffee stand and burger joint, but it's not within view. And off to the west, about 4 blocks away, is a huge mall. Mount Rushmore Mall, I think it's called, or maybe just Rushmore Mall. I was so stunned, I can't quite remember anything but Rushmore and Mall. Box Elder is in the process of being engulfed by Rapid City and if they don't watch out will be swallowed whole. This afternoon I checked out my fast food finder app and discovered a grouping of fast foods 3 miles back up I-90. There's a whole pack of them there, including a Taco Bell. So we can still do Monday supper at Taco Bell, much to Ray's chagrin. He thought he'd out-driven Taco Bell. Ha! Box Elder is not in a wilderness anymore! I must tell you that the scenery all along I-90 is pretty special, and sometimes spectacular. We really enjoyed the trip part of the days and once past Billings, it was all new to us. I took some pictures with my cell phone and will post the best when we get them transferred to the computer. I'm sure mere photographs will not capture the grandeur of the vistas from the tops of the hills. I sort of wish I'd taken pictures of all the construction sites along the highway. It was truly amazing how many bridges are being replace/resurfaced in Montana and Wyoming. If these states can, why can't Washington? We really liked the looks of Montana and Wyoming this time of year. We saw baby antelope, baby beeves, baby dairy cows, lambs, foals, eaglets. The grass is lush and green and it's hard to believe that in a few short months blizzards will be shutting down the Interstate. All through eastern Montana and Wyoming we saw signs along the way that read something like "I-90 closed go back to (insert name of last town)". And there are train crossing guards they can put down to reinforce the idea that the road is closed. We have decided we don't care to live here in the winter. But it was wonderful to see the landscapes. We want to go back to Montana and spend more time exploring. Idaho too. We can get to parts of Wyoming without too much trouble from here. I am sorry the trip here had to happen so fast, but we do have a schedule to keep this summer. Next summer, not so much. And we do have time to get back to places we missed this time through. I can recommend Tamarack RV Park in CdA, and Sunrise Campground in Bozeman. Both are well maintained. The people who run Sunrise are very nice indeed. We'll see about this one. The camp host seems nice enough although Treacherous Dolly flummoxed him too. We'll meet the owners tomorrow. So Ray is napping, Norm is napping and I need to see what I can make out of hamburger and a conglomeration of unrelated foodstuffs. So have a good day! Tomorrow we will be seeing about the replacement of the bed slide mechanism so that we can free the clothes, but of course don't know when that might actually happen. Perhaps Tuesday will bring a visit to the Air Base. We'll see what the days bring. But no Treacherous Dollys!!!