4/27/2011 Plan B

Ok, we’ve got Plan B in place since Plan A was all shot to hell.

We were up and out a little before nine and we didn’t have far to go, just 108 miles. Remember that, it will come into play later. First stop was in town to get fuel. Can you believe Bob said, “Oh look, only four oh three.” And we got excited! ONLY $4.03! ONLY! We’ve seen it higher in this area so we’ll take it!

We have decided to go to Ellsworth Air Force Base in Box Elder, South Dakota, not far from Rapid City. We’ll stay there in the FamCamp for a few days, make some calls to see if we can secure a camp host position for the month of May. We only have 108 miles to go so it shouldn’t be long before we are set up and settled in. Uh, yeah right.

Since we were pretty close to the border anyway it was no time at all before I was able to snap this picture.

Today started out partly cloudy and the further we drove the clouds seemed to get more dense. One good thing was that traffic was very light.

LaVon, I didn’t forget you,,,here’s your dead tree for the day. Or maybe it isn’t dead and it just hasn’t leafed out yet this spring.

Once again, the antelope were out in force. According to the comments left the other day I know of one of my friends who is going to once again have that song “Home on the Range” running through her head again.

The Badlands sure is pretty country to drive through. We couldn’t help but focus on the weather we were running into.

Somebody is getting’ a boatload of rain!

We managed to drive between the raindrops. Rain was pouring down all around us and drove through very brief showers, not even needing the windshield wipers.

So we get to Ellsworth AFB, get through the checkpoint with no problem and after getting directions to the FamCamp, well, let’s just say this is where the fun begins.

We pull into the FamCamp and see just two other RV’s there. One is there long term by the looks of things and the other was just visiting like us. Bob pulls up to the office and no one is there. Well, ok, we have a phone number to call so I get my cell phone and was helped by a very nice fellow on the other end of the line. He tells me to just pick a space, get set up and then to go to the Outdoor Rec building to see him to get signed in. Great! All the info we needed. Just as we were getting ready to hang up he drops this. “By the way, the water isn’t on yet so you’ll have to fill your tank.” OH NO! Ok, where do we get that done? You’ll have to go out to the Interstate to the Flying J, they have water. Oh, this isn’t good. We get directions and hit the road again.

I’m thinking there has to be other campgrounds, possibly half price Passport America parks in the area and I start looking. I found one and called and it sounded good. We missed our exit for Flying J and had to go to the next one to get turned around. While we were in a parking lot getting turned around I mentioned it to Bob and we decided to go there. We need to get back on the Interstate anyway its just one exit down so its all good. Well, it would have been had we gotten on the Interstate going in the right direction. Bob’s mind was still focused on Flying J. Now to make matters worse, here comes the rain. Torrential downpour! Traffic is crawling, we can hardly see and Bob says, well….. maybe I better not go there. Let’s just say we’re going back to Ellsworth. We pulled into Flying J, its pouring and Bob gets out to fill our 80 gallon water tank. Do you know how long that takes? Twice as long when its raining! Thank heaven he had a rain jacket. Of course as soon as he gets done filling the fresh water tank the rain stops, the clouds part and the sun peaks through. That didn’t still didn’t help the mood in the truck.

We get back to the base and we are greeted by this, right at the roadside. Black-tailed deer. As you can tell from the picture, the rain started again too.

I called Dave at the Outdoor Rec and ask if we can get set up and just come over in the morning because its going to downpour again and we’d like to get set up before that happens. He was agreeable to that.

We picked our spot, got set up as quickly as we could and were indoors before the rain came down again.

So what should have taken us three hours tops for travel and set up time now has us almost into hour five! Between wrong turns, sitting in parking lots arguing about what we’re going to do, what our options are, why we are South Dakota in APRIL and the coming weather forecast, well, it just goes to show that life on the road isn’t always peaches and cream, sunshine and butterflies or as Flo says, glitter and unicorns. Things don’t always go as planned for us but I have to look at it as part of this Awesome Journey. I think without the problems, disappointments and the occasional wrong turn the good things wouldn’t be as nearly as good or as special as they are. And that’s the way it should be.