Sunday, July, 27

I did my hippie trip in 1988. It was simple, rustic, and had hurdles. Well...deja vu...with a twist. As Kathryn and I are hurdling down the interstate in our borrowed 1984 Winnebago with windows wide open (Joe said not to run the generator as it uses too much gas), I realized, I'm reliving the 80's!


We made it to my mom's place in Rupert. After discussing the pros and cons of taking or leaving the behemoth gas-binging Winnebago, we decided to continue as planned. We kissed and hugged the kids "good-bye" and headed out into a beautiful sunrise at 5 ;00 on Friday morning. The trip through Idaho was nice and uneventful...then came Montana......and Wyoming.


The first panicked call came from Troy and Joe (in the Winnebago) just after 1:00 in the afternoon. "Pull over, pull over, we blew a tire." Troy was driving and had just experienced his first blow-out. Thankfully, we had listened to Darrell telling us where everything was to change a tire. We all got our hands dirty and Troy learned no new metaphors from Joe.


The second panicked call came from Joe (in the Winnebago) around 4:30. "Pull over, pull over we blew another tire." (4 panicked yells of disbelief and dismay) This time we had no spare and we were in a two lane construction zone. Not a pretty picture! This was Troy's second experience with a flat tire. Kathryn and Troy got to experience Joe's transformation into Yosemite Sam. None of us could remember the original Yosemite Sam being able to use old words, make up new ones on the spot and parcel them out in the conversation like that in the cartoon version. Leaving Troy to read his book in comfort and contemplate his recent language lesson, we trudged ahead to the next town only to meet an unfriendly local yocal at the local tire shop. "We ain't got that tire here. You got go Billings-way, hunnert miles up the road....got me a semi truck comin in....you gotta move." But being the modern, sophisticated people we are, we had GPS, and found a tire shop 30 miles back. Unfortunately, they put us on a tight time schedule of arriving before 6:00 or they have to charge $90 overtime rate. We arrived two minutes late....that's right, 2 minutes, to two jovial men who had $$$$ signs in their eyes and one had apparently won a bet. Yosemete didn't take this news well. To make a long story short we got our tire and free ice cream sandwiches, and they were kind enough to knock that $90 down to $75 before the 1/2 hour mark. Back at the ranch... we quickly discovered that trucks and most cars don't slow down for people changing tiresfeet off the road. It was the scariest moment I've in a long time. But Joe and Troy were troopers, and Troy learned a few new colorful metaphors pertaining to flat tires and Montana drivers.
After getting over that hurdle, we moved on to the next town, got gas and had dinner. We had to come down from the trauma of the day, and find some humor in our adversity. And we needed to thank God for our safety, medicinal whiskey and quart size shot glasses.
We spent the night in a rest stop outside of Billings. Whatever rest we got...it was needed. We got into Gillette, dropped off the trailer, headed off to the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park to set up house. As it turns out, our "house" is the Clampet residence and our neighbors are a blatent display of our declining economy. In setting up, Joe hooked up the water and a few minutes later found the shower working better than expected. He had put his open bag of clothes in the shower stall to make room for us. Here's a lessen for you, check to make sure the knobs are in the "off" position. In our effort to advance the "there goes the neighborhood" theory already flying around the park, we hung out Joe's tighty whiteys, t shirts and best sweat pants to dry (more on that later). The rumors cranked up a notch I'm sure.
Taking into account our RV park neighbors, if it looks like we aren't making $ vending, we will make up housekeeping and murdercycle washing flyers for these folks and probably make a killing. Joe even volunteered to do it topless and in a thong if it would help the bottom line. After a long and very pleasant shower, we decided to do some exploring and headed to Deadwood. It is an old western town where Wild Bill Hikock was shot and killed. Unfortunately all we saw was casinos. We blew a whole $8.75 on gambling, ate dinner (where we met some fine folks from Sioux Falls), and headed out to Sturgis. Sturgis is fairly quiet yet, so we had some time to take it all in. We visited Sturgis' world famous "biggest biker bar" in the world Full Throttle Saloon, where a beer was had and Joe met a fellow who sets up most of the vending for Sturgis. File that one in the memory.
A triker (as opposed to a biker) pulled up to us at a stop light as we were heading out of town and we almost lost Kathryn. Good thing the guy's one tooth (I am not kidding) looked bad, and got in the way of his impeccably bad attire and body by Budweiser (as well as Kathryn's picky high standards of wanting a man with at least 3 teeth) knocked him out of the running or we would have been looking for more help. God's helping out again.....
The weather has been very warm (downright hot when you have to work in it). But last night we saw some beautiful lightning strikes and the wind came up in the night which made for great sleeping weather. Which takes us to the next paragraph.
Just prior to our sight seeing departure from the Caviar Dreams Campground and RV Park, we pulled out the awning just to make things cozy and give Joe someplace to hang his stuff. Upon our return from site seeing , the first thing we noticed was the awning had been neatly put back in place. The second thing we noticed was a towel and one pair of the afore-mentioned tighty whiteys on the step going into the ghettobago. With only a little curiousity we hit the rack and enjoyed the sounds of the storm. Early the next morning, our neighbor came over to find out if the awning had been damaged. It seems that while we were out playing around, 5-6 of the neighbors were keeping our awning from blowing away in the wind. With mph winds whipping things around, they fought and wrestled the awing back into it's rolled up position. pretty nice folks our neighbors. I thanked him for that and for tossing my towel and underwear back on the steps. He said that I will be short a couple pair as they took off across the highway with the wind. He wasn't going to chase after them. I suggested the help go look for them, but they immediatly consulted their union handbook to see if chasing down/hunting underwear was in the contract. It wasn't, so they remained steadfast in their refusal to do either even to the point of talking to the shop Steward (Gayle) who backed them up. I hate unions!!
Today we shop in Rapid City and I think we're going to try to hit the Crazy Horse monument and Mt. Rushmore. Yes, Hunter and Hailey, we will find you some nice presents there. We love you and miss you much!