Winding down - Day 829 (Yr 3, Day 96)

Bismarck, ND

I suspect this will be the last entry that I will be posting in Bismarck!  We've been here since May, almost 5 months, and as it was in Asheville, it's kind of a bittersweet experience.  On one hand, I'm happy to move to a new location.  On the other, we made really wonderful friends with our next door neighbors, Kathy and Roger (who we'll be having a farewell party and campfire with tonight) and it's always difficult to say goodbye.  Sunday morning we head off to Jamestown for the rest of October, and then on to Raleigh for Thanksgiving.  Then who knows where.

Marching orders - Day 821 (Yr 3, Day 88)

Bismarck, ND

Well, sort of.  It's still part of the same assignment but the location is 125 miles (2 hrs) away, so too far to commute.  We will be heading to Jamestown, ND, which is actually the halfway point between Bismarck and Fargo, where we were planning to stop en route to Fargo to change drivers and perhaps do a little sight seeing.  Now it looks like the day we'll be traveling to Fargo (Sunday, Oct. 2nd), rather than stopping for fun, we'll be setting up in a campground.  We already booked the hotel for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and now that our location will be that much closer, it makes it even easier.

Hopefully the assignment will be over by the end of October, but if it isn't, we are requesting to leave by then and head to Raleigh.  We'll have about 2,000 miles to cover and don't want to have to rush or do one overnight stay after the next (at rest areas, truck stops and Walmarts) for 10 days straight.  Also need to allow some time for (G-d forbid) a breakdown delay.  UPDATE: campground closes Nov. 1st so we HAVE to be out of there by then.  Boss is already aware.

As always, we shall see how things turn out.

Meanwhile, fall is in full swing.  The trees are changing colors and the air is crisp and cool.  Beautiful time of year.

Planning for the High Holidays - Day 818 (Yr 3, Day 85)

Bismarck, ND

Nothing at all exciting to report from this week or weekend, except that plans for the High Holidays are finalized.  Changes are slim to none that there will be work in Fargo for that week, so we will just travel both weeks and stay in a hotel that's within walking distance.

We'll probably still be here for Sukkot as well.  As you may recall, we gave up our 10x12 sukkah when we moved, and we were fortunate enough to perform the mitzvah of sitting in a sukkah for the past 2 years at the synagogues we attended (Cary in 2014 and Asheville in 2015).  This year we will not have a place to do that, so we did some research to try to find something we can build at the campground, that's not large and intrusive.  It will just barely fit 2 chairs and a small table -- not be as big and luxurious to fit our entire family in, but then again, no one will be visiting us in it anyway.  What's extremely exciting is the history behind the one we're purchasing, which can be seen in this film:  Our soon to be sukkah.  It was made specifically for this film (carried to the peak by the climbers) and is sitting in the warehouse.  They will sell it to us for just the cost of the fittings and roof and shipping).  Of course, if anyone wants to come sit in our sukkah, we'll find the space for you, even if we have to take turns!

Next round of travel plans? Day 813 (Yr 3, Day 80)

Bismarck, ND

Nothing definite yet, but at this point it is looking more and more likely that this assignment will not be over before the end of October, which means it could potentially run into the first weeks of November.

What this translates to is having to take a direct route from Bismarck straight to Raleigh in time to make it there by Thanksgiving.  May have 1-2 days to visit a few places along the way, but definitely not enough time to make it to NY/NJ or spend time in DC/VA.

We have also put in a request for work starting in December for somewhere in FL, and 2nd choice SC.

Again, still a bit too early to make any definitive plans.

And we will definitely spend the High Holidays in Fargo.  With any luck, maybe there's some work Mitch can do in that area for the week in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (it's for the same utility company and boss who covers all of ND, SD and MT) so we wouldn't have to schlep back and forth the 250 miles twice and he wouldn't need to lose a day on either side of the holidays for travel.  Pretty doubtful, but worth asking.

South Dakota vacation - Day 812 (Yr 3, Day 79)

Bismarck, ND

I know I'm over a week late, but it's been a crazy, busy week with work and I haven't had the time to sit down and finalize this until today.  Even yesterday (Sunday) required my full attention catching up on personal and non-client business stuff which took up my entire day.  So, apologies to my curious and anxious readers!

Returned "home" on Monday, Sept 5 (not sure what "home" means, exactly, since home is where we park it, so it's always with us.  I guess in this case it means wherever we are long term for Mitch's job - currently Bismarck, ND).  Here is the synopsis, starting from the beginning.  Warning - VERY LONG POST!!!  See previous days for the actual travel down to SD, starting Wed. Aug. 31.

Friday, Sept. 2

Another example of plans made in bubbles, although they were somewhat close.  The plan was to visit the air & space museum and take the tour to Ellsworth AFB with a visit inside the Minuteman missile silo.  We woke up early so as to catch the first tour leaving at 9:00, with the plans afterwards to stop at a store for a few groceries (we only packed enough travel food for the way down and realized we needed to restock for the way back home), then stop for lunch and then either tour downtown Rapid City or head 50 miles to Wall to visit touristy Wall Drug.  Figured we'd play that part by ear.

When we got to the museum, we learned that the tour guide was delayed and the first tour wouldn't start until 1:00.  So we toured the museum.  Outside were about 20 planes from all different war eras.  Inside were exhibits of air & space technology, starting from WWI to present satellite systems, with a large part dedicated to the Cold War era planes and missiles. Here are some photos:

Outside:

 

Inside:

  

We finished seeing the exhibits around 10:30, so decided to head out shopping, have some lunch out, and then it would be time for the tour.  Turned out we had to go to a few different places to find a cable Mitch needed, and then the supermarket he wanted to shop at took us through downtown Rapid City.  Mind you, also, that nothing is near anything else so we spent a lot of time driving around.  Of course, they were doing a lot of construction in the downtown area (which is a small-town style downtown, not a large city) so there was a lot of traffic.  The reason Mitch chose that supermarket (Safeway) is because they are known to have a food concession and he figured it would be less expensive and "kill 2 birds with 1 stone," so to speak.  Well, after all that, it turned out that the concession was take out only; nowhere to sit, and they really didn't have many vegetarian selections other than prepared salads.  So we bought what we needed and decided to go to the first restaurant we could find.  By now it was 1:15 and we were both very tired, cranky and hungry (hadn't eaten since 8:00).  Although there were many restaurants in the downtown area, due to the construction, there was no place to park.  Plus, the parking spots (if you could find any) were the diagonal kind, so the truck would never fit.

We took the highway and got off at the first exit that showed food, which was a Perkins.  We landed up having omelets as they didn't have any other choices for us besides a tossed salad (and when you're starving, that's the last thing you want!)

We finished lunch and realized that we didn't have time to make the 2:00 tour, but we could easily make the 3:00 one.  I also had to plan to return home to finish preparing for Shabbat.  This week, due to the time zone change, candle lighting is a few minutes after 7:00, as compared to the 8:30 it's been the last few weeks in Bismarck.  The 3:00 tour would work out perfectly.  PLUS... I forgot to mention how in between all this, one of my clients was frantic and needed me to put out a fire, despite his knowing I was on vacation and wasn't near a computer, so I promised to do it when I returned home (figured I'd do it in between making the food, and I counted on Mitch to help as well, which he did).

Anyway, we got back to the museum to discover that one of the previous tours ran late so the next one wouldn't start until 3:30.  At this point, not only did I feel that would be cutting it a bit too close, especially if this tour ran late too, but Mitch was getting really tired, and I wasn't feeling well.  Remember I had been sick and was still not completely recovered.  I was still coughing and having trouble breathing, especially when I exerted myself or got excited.  I had a few coughing attacks and just didn't feel up to the walking and stair climbing on the tour.  So we decided to just head home and take a little more time to prepare for Shabbat.  Guess we'll have to visit a missile silo another time.

Saturday, Sept. 3

Friday night was very lovely.  Although on 3 sides of us, we saw a sea of trailers, across from us was a field and a hill.  There was actually a picnic bench on the field, so we sat there and watched the sunset.  The sky was completely clear and we noticed there weren't any street lights around.  Since we're not near a city, we hoped we might finally be in a place where we could see a blanket of stars.  After Shabbat dinner, we went back outside, and indeed we could see a lot of stars.  Unfortunately, there were still a lot of lights around the campground, so we couldn't see millions of them, but at least it's more than we usually see.  We sat on the bench, me in Mitch's arms.  It was a magical evening.

Saturday was a beautiful day, which we spent mostly outside.  We took a walk to the pool (didn't realize there was a hot tub too).  Unfortunately, we didn't take our bathing suits and I didn't feel like walking back to change.  Plus, I'm still having trouble breathing (I had to stop twice on the 1/10th mile walk to catch my breath) so swimming probably wouldn't have been a good idea anyway.  We did sit in the shade in the pool area, which was quiet and serene.  Towards the evening, there was a thunderstorm off in the distance, and because of the wide open space, I was able to watch quite a light show.  The storm pretty much missed us except for a few raindrops.

Looking forward to the big tour tomorrow.  Monday we will be packing up and driving about 140 miles.  Not quite 1/2 way, but it's the only place along the route home where there's a place to park overnight -- in a city park -- (we're taking a different route that's not 50 miles out of the way.  Hopefully that won't turn out to be a big mistake!)

Sunday, Sept. 4

This was the big day and the one the vacation revolved around, with the major highlight being Mt. Rushmore.  The tour was actually everything in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Fortunately, it was not at all physically taxing, as we were on the van most of the time, so I didn't have any bouts of coughing spasms.

The tour started at 8:00 am when Bill, our tour guide, picked us up at the campground, and ended at 6:30 pm when he returned us.  There were 5 other people on the van - 3 ladies who were together and another couple. I don't think there's anything Bill hasn't done in his probably 60+ years, but his main focus has been as a chemical engineer and a HS science teacher.  I think this helped his bias in teaching us all about the extremely abundant geology of the area.  Pretty much every rock we passed, he had to point out what it was made of!  Of course, he was also very well versed in the history of the area as well.

Being that the tour lasted 10 1/2 hours, I can't possibly cover everything, so I will attempt to just list the highlights.

The main towns that comprise the Black Hills are Custer, Keystone, and Hill City.  We drove through all of these areas, with Bill pointing out every landmark.  Keystone was probably the biggest touristy area there was. A few photos of the town.  Reminds me a bit of Gaitlinburg, TN.

 
Besides the amazing geology, this area is best known for being the first area of the country where gold was discovered by General Custer. It was the results of this expedition that triggered the great gold rush, which started here and not in CA.  South Dakota mined more gold than all the other states combined!  Along the tour route, myriad old, long closed mine shafts were pointed out.



Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore, where Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln were carved into the mountain.  I thought I would be underwhelmed, having seen so many photos, but it really is pretty awesome seeing it up close and personal.  You entered the viewing area through an arch of state flags:

  

The next part of the journey took us through 2 very interesting and exciting drives.  Personally, I'm thrilled that we did this on a tour and not by ourselves, as I would have been scared expletive-less, to say the least.  The first part was Iron Mountain Road, which took us through the beginning of the Black Hills, with many, many switchbacks on narrow roads.  Below is a photo of one of the sharp turns we had to take to cross a wooden bridge. Mostly the scenery was ponderosa pine trees.  Bill taught us how to identify whether a tree was dead by fire or pine beetle.

  

Along the way, we drove through Sylvan Lake which is a popular wedding location.

  

After driving on this hair raising road, we came to another one that was even worse - Needles Highway - called this because of the "needles" - rock formations which appear to be like needles.  This is a favorite rock climbing area.  It also contains a few extremely narrow tunnels.  There was one place called "eye of the needle" because it truly looks exactly like that.

    

      

We also took a video while driving through the tunnel.  Here is a link to it:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/j6k86bzgmpdsaqw/2016-09-04%20001%202016-09-04%20017.mp4?dl=0

From the Needles Highway, the tour took us to Custer State Park, where we were greeted by a herd of bison, and then some mooching mules (we actually got out to feed them).  Both held up traffic as they love to walk in the road.

  
 

When we were finally able to move again, we made our way to the State Game Lodge, which was originally President Teddy Roosevelt's "White House" when he was in the state, until it became a restaurant where we had a nice buffet lunch (all we could eat was a tossed salad and mashed potatoes; everything else was or had meat in it).

  

Later on, before exiting the park, we had a quick potty break in another rustic style bar & grill, with this lovely mosaic outside of the entrance, and these adorable saddle chairs at the bar:

  

Finally, we were on our way to the last part of our tour - the Crazy Horse Monument, which has been in the process of being built for the last 75 years and there is still no end in sight, at least not within our lifetimes.  They've come a long way and still have so far to go.  The little statue is what the finished product will look like, and this is what's there so far (his head, arm with pointing finger and horse's mane.  It took 10 years to get the "tunnel" you see there.

Sadly, it was raining by then, so the photos didn't come out very well. Of course, the distance photo makes it look insignificant, but you could fit all the presidents' heads of  Mt. Rushmore into the space of Crazy Horse's head alone!  It's a fascinating story, and how mountains are sculpted into statues is an awesome and amazing feat!

Monday, Sept. 5

The plan was to drive to the halfway point - Faith, SD - and stay the night.  By the time we packed up and hitched, it was about 9:00 am.  We got to Faith a little before noon.  Very interesting place:  it was the first "town" (signs of civilization) in our travels from Hermosa.  Population 550 and it reminded me of an old west ghost town.  It's history is actually a place of cowboys.  The streets were very wide and empty.  We were going to park in one of the sites in the city park, but there was so much space on the street, that we just put the rig there (across from the park).  We decided to have a bite to eat first, and took our urbe-s out and rode around town.  We found a cute little bar & grill - Two R's.  Very "cowboyish;" even the restrooms were for cowboys and cowgirls!  Here is their welcome sign and the main stores in town:

  

During lunch, we decided that it was still early enough and the town wasn't all that exciting, so we would push ourselves and drive the rest of the way back to Bismarck -- another 180 miles.  We were taking a different route than the one we drove down (middle of the state rather than the western side), and hoped it might be a bit different.  No, it wasn't!  There were no other places to stop along the way, so when we needed to change drivers again after about 100 miles, we had to pull over on the small shoulder.  Fortunately, no other cars for miles away so it wasn't a big deal.

We kind of figured since it was Labor Day, everyone would have headed out of the campground and returned to their homes.  Oddly enough, this was not the case and the campground was filled to capacity!  We lucked out in that someone didn't show up, so we could take their spot until the morning, when we could have our own space back.  We only hooked up to electric; it wasn't worth the bother to attach the water and sewer hoses overnight. Besides, the original plan if we stayed in Faith was to boondock anyway, so we were already ahead of the game.

Tuesday, Sept. 6

We woke up relatively early (8:00), made breakfast, and packed up stuff in order to close the slides and move to our spot.  We were done and settled in by 11.  I spent the day setting up house and Mitch cleaned the truck out.  We didn't do anything else too exciting, as we were pretty tired.

Wednesday, Sept. 7

Not really part of the vacation, but I'll post these few sentences here anyway.  It was back to work day.  I had about 30 emails to action, so it was a long, hard day of catching up.  Mitch also went back to work, and learned that tomorrow one of his colleagues is leaving and in 2 weeks, the other one is.  They brought in one person, but it will soon be just the 2 of them finishing up the area.  I sure hope they can finish before the winter!

Thursday, Sept. 9 to Sunday, Sept. 11

More of the same as Wednesday.  Still inundated with work.  Thankfully, Mitch helped once again to prepare for Shabbat (including baking the challah) so I could work.  Weather has been in the 60s, except Sunday when it was 88.  Now back to 60s.  Oy!

UPDATE ON MITCH'S DEER PHOTO (http://mitcheryl-rv-journey.blogspot.com/2016/09/vacation-status-day-802-yr-3-day-69.html), here it is if you couldn't find it.  And now he thinks it might be a fox and not a baby deer.  Who knows, maybe a golden lab?

Vacation status - Day 802 (Yr 3, Day 69)

Hermosa, SD

First, a quick diversion...  while Mitch was uploading his photos, he came across this one.  Nothing to do with our trip, but it was something he found while walking the route on his job.  Adorable baby deer sitting and hiding in the grass.  Can you find it?



We took quite a few photos, so I decided I will write a summary of the trip when we return.  We're still leaning towards starting the drive back on Monday.

Arrived in Hermosa, SD - Day 801 (Yr 3, Day 68)

Hermosa, SD

We completed the drive today, arriving in Hermosa, which is about 20 miles from Mt. Rushmore.  It continued to be an exhausting and boring drive through nothing but open land, with a few buttes and occasional cows thrown in.  Driving with nothing to look at is really much more tiring, probably because it's so much easier to get hypnotized by the road and you have to put in a lot more effort into staying alert and focused.

I don't know who said it was all flat land, but our drive was nothing but rolling hills.  I also don't like driving on inclines, as I'm not used to a diesel engine pulling 20,000 pounds, and although it's probably normal, I don't like it when I can't get the speed up where it should be. I confess that I really don't like the driving aspect of this lifestyle.

Some photos of the wide open landscape:





A beautiful butte (which is pronounced byoot, not butt!)



There was, however, one interesting sculpture we passed.  Not quite sure what it was, but it looked interesting:



We did have a little delay, and a few anxious moments when, after passing through a small town (Buffalo, SD, population 360) where there was a bit of construction traffic, the truck died.  Of course, this was in the middle of town, with only 1 lane on either side of the road, so we were blocking traffic.  Turned out we were out of gas (side note: we have 3 tanks, totaling 105 gallons. I was driving and told Mitch we were almost on empty and needed to switch tanks.  Fool that I am, I listened to him when he said I should wait until the low fuel light went on.  Turns out I didn't see the light go on; either I wasn't looking for it, or there was too much glare on the dashboard to see it).  In any event, a diesel engine is a different animal from regular.  You can't just put gas in and expect it to start immediately.  It finally did, after about 15 minutes, but the anxiety was whether it would start at all and whether the fuel was the problem. Thankfully it was.  We couldn't get it to turn over, but we were fortunate to be in an area with a cell signal, so Mitch went to the internet to see if he could resolve the problem, which he did.

Where we were stopped for the construction, we sat there for about 1/2 hr. before the sign changed from "stop" to "slow".  They were waiting for traffic in the other direction to pass first: all 3 cars.  They were probably about 20 miles away when they made the decision to close this side of the road.



My next bit of driving anxiety was later when I saw that black smoke was coming out of the exhaust whenever we accelerated.  When we arrived and settled in, I immediately called the mechanic who worked on the truck to get it road ready.  He assured me there was probably some extra fuel that got into the line and we should worry unless it was continuous, and that it will probably go away soon.  Let's hope.  By the way, did I mention how much I hate the driving part of this journey?

There was a small breakup of scenery when we passed through Sturgis, SD, home of a major motorcycle rally.  Here are a few photos.  I wasn't able to get enough photos, but there were so many saloons (for bikers, of course) with names such as Full Throttle, The Knuckle Saloon, One Eyed Jacks, the Beaver Bar, Broken Spokes, and the Drag Pipe.  One of them had a giant biker sculpture but I wasn't able to catch a pic of that as the camera on the phone wasn't ready and by the time I opened it, we were passed it.  Oh well.  Next time I keep my camera at the ready as it's much faster to turn on.

Here are a few pictures passing thru town.  We did see a much larger downtown area which reminded me a lot of Mandan.












After 5 hours, we finally arrived at our destination - Heartland RV Park.  It's like a giant parking lot -- not much space between neighbors, no trees, but they do have laundry, bath houses and a pool.  There's a pizza place and drive in theater down the road.  Nothing we really wanted to watch at the theater; besides we were much too tired to do anything but eat, take a shower, watch a little tv and go to bed early (8:30ish).

As an aside, I love little local places (as do almost all my fellow travelers).  This place, Linze's Pizza, offered many kinds of specialty pies and the folks there were extremely friendly.  There was a sign in the front explaining the humble beginnings of the place (you may need to click to read):




Hopefully, other than Shabbat, we'll be out & about so it won't really matter.  We chose this place, even though it's about 20 miles from Mt. Rushmore, because it's a Passport America park so we get a 50% discount.  It's decent, but not a place I'd enjoy staying long term.

So... here's the (hopeful) itinerary for the rest of this weekend:  we decided to cut the vacation short and head back north on Monday.  I think the drive will be too difficult to do in one day.  It will take 8 hours, but that's 8 hours of difficult driving.

Tomorrow (Friday), we will start the day going up to Rapid City (about 45 mins away), where we will visit the Air & Space museum and take a tour of Ellsworth AFB and the missile silo.  Afterwards, there's a big box shopping area where we need to pick up a few items; maybe have lunch depending on the time.  Then either we'll drive about 50 miles to Wall, SD and visit the famous Wall Drugs or just check out the downtown area of Rapid City.  Then head home and prepare for Shabbat, and spend Saturday doing our normal stuff.  Sunday we're booked for a tour to visit Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park wildlife loop and drive through some very scenic bypasses (including Needles Highway, with over 360 turns and some very narrow tunnels).  It's a 10 hour tour.  Monday morning we'll pack up and head back up to Bowman and arrive in Bismarck on Tuesday.

Not sure if I'll be able to post every day this weekend, or if you'll need to wait until next week, after I've sorted through all the photos.  I'll do my best.  Stay tuned.