View of the day-Trouble is brewing in Gettysburg, South Dakota as we try to fuel up before it hits.
What a day!
With all that went on, the best news of the day was that those stinking Habs lost...that's the Montreal Canadien NHL hockey team, the most hated of all teams by anyone who is a REAL hockey fan, for those out of the loop. Now back to business.
We were up early and had to hook up the camper in the rain...that should have been an omen...but it went smoothly and we were rolling to the border in short time. We got there and rather than call across, we decided to pull in...as we have been instructed to in the past...going in the out door, because we don't fit through the scanner. Well, actually, Marilyn could have gone through with the camper, but they usually have us stay together to make checking the serial numbers easier.
But that was before we encountered..."Mrs. Happy"...no relation to the Mr. Happy that has been known to give us 'what for' on occasion. Apparently, Marilyn should have gone the other way...but no big deal, she left us with her underlings to finish our paperwork and she went on to take care of the people coming in the 'proper' way. We had a new girl come and check the serial numbers while the gentleman took some sort of scanner to our rigs.
This was the first time in a long time that they actually went into the camper to look around and wouldn't you know it, this was the first time Marilyn had actually brought a plant with her. This plant was a lovely potted ivy and poinsettia(or the leaving's of one) that she had been given by the theatre group for stage managing the Christmas play...it is now in possession of the Border Patrol. They did let her keep the pot it was in...lesson learned.
We actually got out of there in about 20 minutes and were heading for Kenmare so Marilyn could fuel up. The mileage was suffering with that ferocious wind we had to fight the last couple of days. We were just leaving the fuel station when Marilyn decided to check out the weather band on the radio...seems we were about to meet up with something around Foxholm on our way to Minot. We did hit rain and it was coming down pretty hard but we were able to continue on in the traffic...and it was insane how busy the highway was...Marilyn thought we had been blown back to Saskatchewan, because out of 40 vehicles, at least 36 were from SK.
We had just hit the divided highway a few miles out of Minot when all hell broke loose. The rain got heavier and the wind was whipping things around...then the hail started. We had to pull over and wait it out for about 15 minutes...it was crazy. Al had wiper issues, so he stopped to repair it once he had caught up to Marilyn and with all the traffic going past him as he worked, the vehicles were giving him a shower thanks to the wind and the water on the highway. Even after he got it fixed, he was wet and that started a window fogging problem, so out came the fog-x. We finally got back on the road and continued on to Wilton, where Marilyn had to fuel up again and we discovered the hail had blasted off Al's wide load sign on the trailer and totally removed his warning flag and post. We stopped in Sterling and purchased a new sign, got it mounted and carried on.
We got into South Dakota, all the while watching the skies and listening to the weather reports, and we figured at some point in time we would meet up with some more nasty stuff. Sure enough we were just getting through Mound City, when another hard rain started falling, then there were reports of a tornado on the ground 15 miles east of Selby, which was the next town we had to pass through. Lucky for us the crap was moving NE and we were on the west side of the action. The clouds were impressive and you could just tell there was trouble brewing.
We got to Gettysburg and headed directly to the fuel pumps so Al could fuel his rig up for a change. We got to chat with Lloyd Everett, a harvester friend from Kansas who had been in Gettysburg for the last 5 weeks...combining corn! He had only gotten a couple hundred acres done, what with getting stuck and the weather not cooperating, so he was getting ready to head back home. He said there was still around 3000 acres still left out in the area to combine.
We got the camper parked in the city park and continued to listen to the weather reports...sure do miss Dish network and the weather channel. It would have been nice to see where everything was situated...apparently it was splitting around us...tornado watches, wind warnings...and some place for internet service...it could be a long night.
At least tomorrow we will have a north wind...
What a day!
With all that went on, the best news of the day was that those stinking Habs lost...that's the Montreal Canadien NHL hockey team, the most hated of all teams by anyone who is a REAL hockey fan, for those out of the loop. Now back to business.
We were up early and had to hook up the camper in the rain...that should have been an omen...but it went smoothly and we were rolling to the border in short time. We got there and rather than call across, we decided to pull in...as we have been instructed to in the past...going in the out door, because we don't fit through the scanner. Well, actually, Marilyn could have gone through with the camper, but they usually have us stay together to make checking the serial numbers easier.
But that was before we encountered..."Mrs. Happy"...no relation to the Mr. Happy that has been known to give us 'what for' on occasion. Apparently, Marilyn should have gone the other way...but no big deal, she left us with her underlings to finish our paperwork and she went on to take care of the people coming in the 'proper' way. We had a new girl come and check the serial numbers while the gentleman took some sort of scanner to our rigs.
This was the first time in a long time that they actually went into the camper to look around and wouldn't you know it, this was the first time Marilyn had actually brought a plant with her. This plant was a lovely potted ivy and poinsettia(or the leaving's of one) that she had been given by the theatre group for stage managing the Christmas play...it is now in possession of the Border Patrol. They did let her keep the pot it was in...lesson learned.
We actually got out of there in about 20 minutes and were heading for Kenmare so Marilyn could fuel up. The mileage was suffering with that ferocious wind we had to fight the last couple of days. We were just leaving the fuel station when Marilyn decided to check out the weather band on the radio...seems we were about to meet up with something around Foxholm on our way to Minot. We did hit rain and it was coming down pretty hard but we were able to continue on in the traffic...and it was insane how busy the highway was...Marilyn thought we had been blown back to Saskatchewan, because out of 40 vehicles, at least 36 were from SK.
We had just hit the divided highway a few miles out of Minot when all hell broke loose. The rain got heavier and the wind was whipping things around...then the hail started. We had to pull over and wait it out for about 15 minutes...it was crazy. Al had wiper issues, so he stopped to repair it once he had caught up to Marilyn and with all the traffic going past him as he worked, the vehicles were giving him a shower thanks to the wind and the water on the highway. Even after he got it fixed, he was wet and that started a window fogging problem, so out came the fog-x. We finally got back on the road and continued on to Wilton, where Marilyn had to fuel up again and we discovered the hail had blasted off Al's wide load sign on the trailer and totally removed his warning flag and post. We stopped in Sterling and purchased a new sign, got it mounted and carried on.
We got into South Dakota, all the while watching the skies and listening to the weather reports, and we figured at some point in time we would meet up with some more nasty stuff. Sure enough we were just getting through Mound City, when another hard rain started falling, then there were reports of a tornado on the ground 15 miles east of Selby, which was the next town we had to pass through. Lucky for us the crap was moving NE and we were on the west side of the action. The clouds were impressive and you could just tell there was trouble brewing.
We got to Gettysburg and headed directly to the fuel pumps so Al could fuel his rig up for a change. We got to chat with Lloyd Everett, a harvester friend from Kansas who had been in Gettysburg for the last 5 weeks...combining corn! He had only gotten a couple hundred acres done, what with getting stuck and the weather not cooperating, so he was getting ready to head back home. He said there was still around 3000 acres still left out in the area to combine.
We got the camper parked in the city park and continued to listen to the weather reports...sure do miss Dish network and the weather channel. It would have been nice to see where everything was situated...apparently it was splitting around us...tornado watches, wind warnings...and some place for internet service...it could be a long night.
At least tomorrow we will have a north wind...
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