If it's Friday it must (still) be South Dakota

Dear reader. If you’ve been hanging on every word of this blog for the past week and a half you know that you had nothing to read this morning with your coffee. That’s because the camp last night had no internet and my mobile device, the infernal thing, continues to tell me that it can’t find a signal. Oh well. So, here we are in the “Camp America” RV park in the metropolis of Salem, South Dakota. It’s mid afternoon and we’ve decided to pack it in and do some laundry, take it easy, and bring the blog up to date. Guess which one of us got the laundry?

Anyway, we didn’t really get very far yesterday. From our camp on the fringe of the Bad Lands we traveled north and east to the capital of South Dakota, Pierre. Concetta and I say the name as if it were the surname of that infamous master of Le Gillotine, Robes Pierre. However, here in South Dakota they pronounce the name of their capital as if it was a wooden structure to which you tied your boat on the edge of a river.

Our plan yesterday morning was to drive north and east to Highway 14, through Pierre, and then on to the border of Minnesota and South Dakota. Well, we didn’t make it. Once in Pierre, we simply couldn’t pass up the chance to tour the state capitol building, which, if you’ve never seen it, is truly a magnificent edifice. Everyone we’ve met in South Dakota has been overboard friendly, including the Capitol policeman who invited us down to the Governor’s office to get a photograph of Concetta sitting in the Governor’s chair. Well, who could pass up that opportunity. Naturally, as we often do, we saw an advertisement for the state’s museum while touring the Capitol basement and just couldn’t leave town without seeing it, too.

So it was that it very soon got to be late afternoon and we not only hadn’t found our camp site for the day, we hadn’t even done the grocery shopping we had planned to do so we could actually cook something for dinner. Fortunately, the museum guard knew just where we could find the local Wally World and we jumped into the RV and headed over there. Once the shopping was done, we consulted the AAA guide to find the closest camp site. The sun hadn’t set yet so we thought we were home free. Au Contrar.

As it happens, since May South Dakota has been the victim of much flooding of the Missouri River with water broaching the river banks by several feet and flooding whatever happened to be in the way. The first camp site we sought out, which happened to be right in the middle of town, had been the unfortunate recipient of a bit more water than it was designed to handle. The waterline I saw on the main building in camp was about three feet over the foundation. Shucks! We knew immediately that we wouldn’t be staying there.

Fortunately, the Davis luck was running high and the very next camp site we found, only four or five miles out of town, had been flooded in some parts but other, higher parts were completely fine.

We selected a nice, dry piece of ground beside a spreading forest of trees, hooked up our electric, and settled in for the night. The camp didn’t have water, sewer, or internet, but we had all the ambience of a tree-shaded paradise beside the mighty Missouri, a cheery lantern, and one of Concetta’s prize-winning fritatas for dinner. Best of all, the cost of the camp site was a very affordable six bucks. Wonderful.

To bring you up to date on another important subject, you may remember that yesterday, while in camp near the little town of “Interior,” South Dakota, I attempted a repair on the rooftop refrigerator coil shield that I had damaged by dragging it along a very, very large tree in Bozeman, Montana. My repair material of choice was the side walls of a gallon jug of spring water that I had picked out specifically for it’s resemblance to the contours of the part I had damaged. After spending an hour applying a product called “Goop” and attempting to make cut-out portions of the water bottle stick to the rubber-like material of the broken shield, I was somewhat disgusted with the result. I really didn’t think it was sticking worth a damn, still I decided that I would let it cure, then drive the motor home for a whole day. If the patches were still in place by the end of the day then I’d use some silicone sealant that I had brought along and fill in whatever parts of the patch hadn’t stuck well to make it water tight. Well, I have to tell you that my makeshift patches held for the day and have now been thoroughly sealed. I have high hopes that they will last the remainder of our voyage. They don’t look pretty, but they certainly do work.

Today, we had hopes of finding a reliable old Mickey Ds to post this blog, but after miles of nothing but corn, soy beans, and sun flowers we finally gave up that idea. So here we are in Salem, which is a tiny town just west of Sioux City, South Dakota. Yes, I know we had hoped to be in Minnesota tonight but the fates had other ideas. Our only diversion today was stumbling into Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home town and we stopped to check it out. The little old ladies tried to get us to go on an hour-long tour of everything Laura ever touched in town, but we begged off citing an important appointment down the road. We settled for shooting a pix or three of her school house and the surrounding gardens then we were back on the road.

I guess we were lucky that we stopped early today because there’s been a constant succession of Rvs coming in after us. The park is filling up fast. They only have two washing machines in the laundry area and we were first on the scene. Let that be a lesson to us. This place also has the added benefit of having an impromptu antiques and book store in one half of the office. Now what more in life could you want? I’ve already checked it out but so far have resisted buying anything.

Tomorrow? Well, we haven’t decided on tomorrow. I don’t know wether we’ll head back north before we head east (we had to drop south to the interstate to find this park) or whether we’ll just head toward Sioux City and decide from there. As you might guess the RV parks are more numerous on the interstates, but so too are the travelers. Last night was really nice because we had the half-filled park, the Missouri River, and us. No noise or other distractions. Just lots of quiet and cool breezes. So, until we rack up a few more adventures, I bid you adieu.

P.S. I’m thinking the Prairie museum north of here sounds pretty interesting.