20050909 Rapid City, SD

20050909

Here we are in Rapid City once again. This is where we started our adventure seventeen months ago. We had lived here for a couple of years and owned a home in Black Hawk northwest of the city. We have always felt if we ever stopped traveling this area is on the short list of where we would settle back down. Returning here has just reinforced that feeling.

We are going to be in town for a couple of weeks taking care of our annual medical visits, some service on our Phaeton and catching up with our old friends. I just came in from sitting outside and enjoying an absolutely beautiful evening, 72 degrees, light breeze, clear night with the city lights below us and not a bug in sight. PERFECT!

My last update had us heading for Minneapolis. We made our pilgrimage to Camping World then drove down to Lone Rock, IA to visit Joan’s mother. Anyone suffering from stress should visit Lone Rock. This town of 150 is so laid back and relaxing, in fact after 5 or 6 days I could feel myself slipping into a coma. The visit was excellent; Joan’s mother is a great cook and provided us with many comfort meals. Her stepfather Dwight has an excellent wood shop that I have used during past visits to make a few things for the RV. This trip Dwight made us a couple of very nice stools for the RV. I’ll put some pictures up on our site later.

After leaving Lone Rock we stopped in Vermillion, SD to visit Joan’s brother David. He and his son Jessie have just started college in Vermillion. Jesse is just beginning his college experience, David is returning to get his Masters. We spent one night camping in the Vermillion City Park, they have several very clean RV spots for a $5.00 per night donation.

Fuel prices are nuts. We filled up in La Crosse, WI for $2.51 a gallon, nine days later it was $2.71 a gallon in Fairmount, MN and today I filled up here in Rapid City for $2.89 a gallon and that is down from over $3.00 a gallon a few days ago. We are going to be delaying our journey considerably as we slowly make our way to southern Arizona where we plan to spend the winter, as of now we are planning to get down near Casa Grande sometime in late October.