It’s 6:30am Friday morning. We’re in the land of my paternal ancestors – southeast South Dakota.

Wednesday, I was still a bachelor as Donna was in New York City shooting a national TV satellite media tour. I didn’t do much. I took a couple of walks around the area and explored a little on the scooter. For lunch I walked to the casino in search of a cheap meal.

I wouldn’t call the menu there cheap. Reasonable? Maybe. I had two tacos with Spanish rice for  $9. It wasn’t bad – I’d rate it a 3 on a scale 5. I’m looking forward to Roberto’s for tacos when we reach San Diego.

I read more of “Covert” by Bob Delaney and snoozed in the outdoor recliner. I decided to get a head start on packing as we would pull out of Dakotah Meadows RV Park in the morning. Before I knew it, I had almost everything loaded in the trailer and the awning secured. After taking a shower, I thought about dinner. Doh! I’d loaded the scooter in trailer and had things packed behind it.

The grill was put away and I didn’t have anything laid out for dinner anyway. So, I walked to the casino for another mediocre meal. This time it was a mushroom burger and fries. Doesn’t measure up to the meals I’m accustomed to – life with Donna means I usually eat well!

Around 9pm a text message appeared on my phone – “Outside now behind the coach.” I walked out and found Donna sitting in a Lincoln Town Car behind our site. I was happy to have her back!

Yesterday we were up around 7:30am. After coffee and yogurt I disconnected the hook-ups while Donna packed the interior. We pulled out of our site at 9am drove over to the RV wash. I pressure washed the coach and trailer, then topped up the tank. 29 gallons of unleaded at $3.37 – the cheapest we’ve had so far. It’s the first time I’d left the pump without spending over $100.

Our route took us southwest through Mankato. We hit I-90 at Worthington where we stopped at Walmart to to stock up on groceries. I don’t know what was going on there. We saw several young people in parking lot and store. They looked like “hippies” from the 60’s. Unwashed, strange clothing and hair. I must be getting old – I was one of them decades ago.

As we headed west on I-90 it got dark with heavy cloud cover. We drove through some light rain, nothing much, but enough to undo the hour I spent washing the coach and trailer. It’s what they always say – wash your car and it’s sure to rain, right?

I wanted to stop at the Welcome Center when we entered South Dakota. I’d heard good things about it – like free detailed road maps of the state and plenty of tourism brochures. Immediately after we crossed the state line there was a truck scale and rest stop. I blew by it, then realized that was the Welcome Center. Oh well.

Our site at Camp America

We arrived at the Camp America Campground in Salem, South Dakota around 4:00pm. I booked a week here a couple of days ago. We have a large pullthrough site in the back corner. Nice! The view out our windshield is farmland with woods in the distance. Full hook-ups with 50 amp service. The weekly rate if you pay cash is $175 – that’s $25/day. Not too shabby. We’ll appreciate the 50 amp service in a couple of days. The weather forecast calls for temperatures to rise into the 90’s. With 50 amp service we can run both A/C units at the same time.

I’m getting our set-up routine down. I had the rig hooked up, leveled and slides out in no time. It was still cloudy and cool – in the upper 60’s which is very unusual at this time of year here. Today will remain cool before the temperatures rise over the weekend.

At dusk swallows (maybe they were martins) swooped through our campsite. Once again we had insectivores targeting flying bugs. Whether they’re birds or bats, I like it!

The business side of the rig – utilities hook ups

Today we’ll scooter over to Madison to get our driver’s licenses and register our vehicles. We also need to change our insurance as we’ll no longer be Michigan residents. I’ll explain our reasoning for this in my next post.