View of the day-Waiting in the wet fog at Highmore, SD.Well, we are well on the road after an exhausting week of work, repairs and preparation for the trip south.
Marilyn had a marathon weekend at Staples, getting ready for the annual inventory…there is a LOT of stuff in that store and it all had to be counted…and recounted. Even though the shifts were 7am to noon, there were no ‘early to bed’ nights because there was as much to do at home getting the camper loaded. As usual, Marilyn gets into the ‘purge’ mode before leaving for the summer, donating or chucking the unessesary things that have been collected…or that don’t fit…several bags and boxes of stuff hit the road, which should have made loading the camper a simpler job…uh huh, riiight.
Al on the other hand was busy getting the General in running order…or rather stopping order…by getting new brakes put on. He had the help of Danny, his friend who lets us park our trailers for the winter out at his farm. Once the General was in tip top shape, we got everything out to the Yorkton Auction Centre lot and started loading.
The combine loading didn’t go as well as the tractor and cart, it did take a couple of tries to get the combine lined up and a few more to get the shop trailer lined up on the narrow ramp to load in the back of the General. All in all, we had everything loaded and tied down in a matter of a couple hours…then it was back to the camper for Marilyn, while Al took care of the banking, insurance and mail forwarding.
Marilyn hosted the windup for the theatre group and because it was to be a BBQ, we had to go out and purchase one. We had an old wreck of a thing that used to make the trip south for several years, but it had been sitting outside for so long that when Marilyn took the pressure washer to it, well…it sort of disintegrated…so a new one was in order. We made good use of it before we left and Al even hosted his own ‘end of season’ BBQ for his peeps from H&R Block.
The day finally arrived for us to leave for the season…Al wanted AIS by noon on Friday, May 20 which was the start of the Victoria Day weekend and we had to be off the highway with the wide load by 3pm. Marilyn still had a pile of stuff to get into the camper, so Al left as scheduled while she finished packing. We had hooked the camper up and had it lined up to leave, so the trek back and forth from the house to the camper was quite the workout.
Al made Carlyle with time to spare and Marilyn was able to finally get rolling around 5pm. We both ran into rain on the way down…not to mention the horrifical state of the #9 highway, which made the trip an hour longer than usual. Al had wiper issues and had to stop to try to get them working and was able to get them rigged up once he got out to the farm. Meanwhile, Marilyn was still trying to figure out where to put things in the camper…lots of storage, but optimizing things was the big task and 8 empty boxes later, there was a dent put in the pile.
We left for the border on Saturday morning and it was raining pretty hard, so it was fortunate that we had the regular guys on both sides of the border…especially on the US side, because he recognized everything we had and wasn’t about to go out into the rain. We had a north wind pushing us for most of the way and by the time we had gotten south of the interstate, we only had to deal with the occasional cloudburst…until we hit South Dakota.
We had just driven about 20 miles into the state when we encountered a detour with no clue where it was going to take us, although it was nice that it was going to help us avoid another terribly rough stretch of road. We hit some really heavy rains as it took us east to Eureka, then south to Bowdle, Hoven and Lebanon, SD. Because we came out 13 miles east of Gettysburg, at Lebanon, we figured we had enough daylight to make it to Highmore where we could spend the night…we didn’t need to stop in Gettysburg this pass and it would take 65 miles off the Sunday stretch.
We got to Highmore where they informed us that it had rained an inch the day before and you could certainly tell that by the water that was laying all around the parking lot. We managed to find a town park to set up camp…power, but we had to fill the fresh water holding tank so we could have our showers. We got the water heater working and Al was able to take the maiden voyage in the shower, but when it was Marilyn’s turn, the water pump and tank sensors wouldn’t work, so she was out of luck…and too tired to give a hoot.
After a great night’s sleep, we woke to see…or not see…that there was a thick fog outside, which meant that we wouldn’t be making an early start. We packed up the camper and after checking things over, Marilyn discovered that a fuse had blown in the water sensor which affected the water pump…an easy fix.
We grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich, then started off into the fog…which had pretty much disappeared about 30 miles south of Highmore. We still had the wind pushing us and we made pretty good time and only had to stop a couple of times to stretch and fuel up. We made Hays, Kansas and started around the bypass, when Al called on the radio to inform Marilyn that she had lost a mudflap off the Dodge. He carried on to Rush Center while she drove back through town to pick it up…and it was still there when she got to it, and with no traffic to tie up, it was in the box of the truck before you knew it.
Once Marilyn caught up to Al, it was on to Great Bend and into the campground after parking the General close to the fuel station. While waiting for Al to shut down the General, Marilyn replaced the fuse and rushed into the bathroom for a much needed pit stop. Unfortunately,once the pump was turned back on, it was apparent that the kitchen tap had not been shut off when testing the pump from the blown fuse and with the sink cover in place and the slides still in, the water had no place to go but over the counter and onto the floor under the table…lovely.
We got to the campground and after getting parked and getting the slides out, Marilyn started mopping up the mess…of all times for there to be good pressure from the pump…grr. Al was happy that we finally got to test out both A/C units and they really push the cold air through, which made him REALLY happy. Marilyn finally got a shower with no leaks and after a quick run to Arby’s for supper, that was the end of the day.
So we are already 1000 miles from home with about 150 to go to our destination…but…we may have found some pick-up work on canola, which would mean going back to Carlyle to get our pickup head.
Oh, joy…
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