Oh, Those Strong Winds

We will be staying in one place now after 4 days of driving. This will give us time to catch up with our communication and blogging.

Our drive from Billings on Highway 87 to Rapid City was up and down getting to elevations as high as 1481 meters with some areas covered in snow. The Montana terrain was very unique with red soil, rocks, lots of fur and pine trees. The wind was very strong which slowed us down. We averaged 80 to 90 km/hour. The hills make the trany kick down, and of course, this used more diesel than usual.

On arrival at Rapid City in late afternoon, the sun was just setting and we were hungry. We found the Canyon Lake Park RV Campsite in a travel book and with the direction from the book and some help from the GPS we found the place. The route we had chosen took us and the 34 foot trailer through road construction with very narrow lanes. At one point we were down to one lane on the whole street. Anyway we found the place and set up. If we were to leave early in the morning we would have to fill the truck needed diesel, so we looked for a gas station to fuel up. We grabbed a pizza at restaurant near by for our supper as we were too tired to rustle up a meal. Needless to say we were in bed by 8:30pm.

After a good sleep and breakfast (porridge with apples), we were on way using I-90 at 8am. Today was an interesting one. We kept seeing signs along the Interstate advertizing Wall Drugs. This got our curiosity up. We looked it up in a book that we carry in the truck which gives us the history of places throughout the US. We found that Wall Drugs is in a very small place called Wall, with 300 people in 1931. As we were only a couple of mile from Wall, we thought that would be a must for us to visit.

A pharmacist Ted Hustead and his wife Dorothy bought the small store in 1931 during the depression. People would drive by Wall, so their customers were few. On one hot July day and after 5 years of struggling, Dorothy came up with the idea to offer those that drove by a free glass of ice water. Signs went up and with-in a few hours customers came and business grow.

Today the family run a 50,000 square foot tourist attraction that sells everything imaginable in a place that you could spent days, just looking and eating, AND STILL GET A FREE GLASS OF ICE WATER.

This stop took us an hour so we were back on I-90 bucking even stronger winds than before. Randal was becoming white knuckled from trying to keep the truck and trailer on the road. We stopped at rest stop just passed Oacoma, across the Missouri River, and enjoyed the view from the look out point they had there. It was so  windy the flags were flying straight out. It felt like Saskatchewan so it was nice to get back in the truck and started on our way again.

The wind was evident that anything could happen on our remaining trip to Sioux Falls. Just a few miles down the road the lower panel on the kitchen slide was blown off. The thin metal was flung across to the other lane of the Interstate. Randal quickly stopped and was able to cut the only point that was still attached and we put the damaged piece in the back of the truck. We also noticed that the cover of the water heater vent was missing.

On arrival in Sioux Falls, we booked into the Red Barn RV Park for 3 days. This will give us time to contact an Open Range Dealer to see if they will be able to do the repairs needed. It will also give us time to relax and get some walking in and be tourists.

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