Depart for South Dakota (part I)

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Sunday, August 1, 2010

I was supposed to meet my friends with the RV in Wixom at 6AM but since I got shwasted the night before at a family reunion, I woke up at 6 and could not drive. Thank goodness my mother was able to come get me so that I could show up drunk and without any toiletries. It was an interesting couple of hours before we arrived in Chicago at 9:45AM to pick up out fourth travel mate.

The drive to Sioux City, IA was rather boring but we did get to see the world's largest truck stop. When we got to Sioux City, our hotel was actually very nice. We were pretty hungry so after a quick walk through downtown Sioux City, we ended up eating/drinking at Sweet Fanny's. I got a beer and the Southwest Chicken Salad.

After dinner, we made a quick stop to Walgreen's to get me some toiletries. I was able to get those and a pair of sun glasses for only $1.50. After Walgreen's, we all went for a dip in the pool, hot tub and sauna. It was very nice to relax after a long day of driving. It was also nice to finally get a shower in.

Monday, August 2, 2010

We got up and ready and out by nine-ish. I don't remember what we did for breakfast, if anything. We were supposed to go to the Falls Park in Sioux Falls, SD but it was storming and pooring rain so we decided to keep on trucking through South Dakota. Our next stop would be the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.

Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD
Glad I can now say that I have been but never again and not recommended. It was sooo touristy (as I should have realized) and it was just this building covered in dried corn. It was kind of cool to go inside and see all the pictures of it over the ages (as it changes every year). However, that was the extent of my excitement for the Corn Palace. Off to Rapid City and beyond for our campsite.

At one point, we had delicious chicken salad (homemade by my friend) for lunch.

Campsite shenanigans
So, we were to soon to learn that our GPS was a piece of shit. Since a lot of the places we would be visiting did not have an address, it made it even harder. Our first debacle was not very fun and actually could have been a lot worse. Apparently, my friends saw the sign to our campsite but instead decided to keep driving. Our GPS took us on this long, hilly, and windy dirt road. For some reason, after bottoming out numerous times with the camper still attached, we realized this was not going to be a good idea.

However, we were stuck on a one-way dirt road with a camper attached. It was about 90 degrees out and we decided the only way we would get out of this situation was to unhitch the camper and manually turn it around, drive around it in the forest, reattach it and be on our way. This was easier said than done. SO I decided to run about a mile ahead to see if there was a home or a pull off or anything that could possibly help us. Unfortunately, there was not. So, we pulled, pushed and managed to miraculously get the car in front of the trailer and the trailer turned around.

From there, we headed back to the sign (that I did not see) and went to our campsite. This was also some sort of situation because our canopy was facing the street (something we had failed to realized) and we wanted it to face the rest of the campsite. So, once again, we had to reattach the camper and pull it out of the campsite, only to back it in. The people in the other campsite thought the site of us morons was hilarious. Marc literally rubbed the camper against a tree on his way out but I guess that's better than hitting a tree.

We eventually ended up backing the camper in, set it up and decided to go swimming. Since I was all dirty and sweaty, I jumped right into the Pactola Reservoir. Apparently reservoirs are known for being cold. But this one was tolerable.

After swimming was dinner. For dinner, we had hamburgers (even though our pre-made frozen patties had become a bag of ground beef). We also had some Dark Horse beer from the growlers my friends had brought. We had the Raspberry and the IPA.

When dinner was over and we cleaned up a little bit, we played liar's dice (which was fun), pass the pigs (which was more fun) and Euchre (which I would have played all night). Exhausted and excited to actually start our trip, we hit the hay.

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Photos

Corn Palace
In Mitchell, SD

Bear Gulch Road
This is where we manually turned the camper around. We were sweaty and dirty.