June 18, 2016

View of the day-Thursday, dust was flying everywhere. This was taken a mile from our “campground” at Cherokee.

We wanted to beat the heat, so we got everything hooked up and ready to go before noon. We were quite pleased that flushing the radiator did the trick for keeping the heat gauge where it belonged, especially when climbing those hills in northern Kansas and Nebraska in the 100º heat again.

There were a lot of combines running on our way out of Kansas, most of them looked to be more local farmers than the custom type. We made it through the rest of the state, then started through Nebraska, this time going up US281 instead of our old standby on US183. There is quite the difference between those two, with the 183 being a straight shot and the 281 full of curves and corners…productivity goes down with that one. We did have a strong wind pushing us, which made a big difference on those hills.

Our destination was O’Neill, NE, which meant we would have logged almost 500 miles today. We found the campground as soon as we hit town, got the camper parked and the air conditioners cranked to cool the joint off.

We had noticed, while the heat gauge was behaving, the air conditioner had cut back to the point we had to run with the windows open. When we got to the campground, we could hear an odd sound from under the hood, but couldn’t pinpoint it. On our “cool down” drive we searched for a local mechanic shop where we could take the pickup in the morning. We found one, now we have to wait to hear the verdict.

No internet or phone data, so the blog has to wait for the morning…

Friday, Al was up early and went down to the mechanic, he was going to take a look at the truck and see what he could do. Might not be able to get to it right away, but we should call back at 11am to find out. The worst part of that was that Al had to walk back about 15 blocks to the camper and it wasn’t nice out. Even though it was early, the humidity was brutal and it felt like 100º.

We could do nothing but wait and since it was cool in the camper, we just watched local TV until it was time to call. We didn’t find out much, other than it looked like the easy way was not going to work, so we waited until 12:30, then braced ourselves for the walk back downtown. We were able to find slivers of shade on the way along with the occasional park bench to cool down. Once we got to the shop, we found out it was going to need a new a/c compressor and they could probably get it done as soon as possible…Al asked if they could get it done by 4pm. They would try. Al also asked if they could come to the campground to pick him up when it was done and, thankfully, they said they would.  We stopped for a quick lunch, then started the walk back to the camper…this time the conditions were even worse, especially trying to find a bit of shade. The rest break back at the camper was much needed this time.

We paid the tab and at the stroke of 5:00 PM we left O’Neill Nebraska for… depending on how far Al wanted to drive.  As we headed north we heard on the radio we were in a thunderstorm watch as we got deep into South Dakota the skies got a bit dark but the only thing that happened is we got a strong north wind to drive against and the temperature dropped from 95 to about 75…that was a nice change. 

We could sure see where the wind had wreaked havoc in a lot of the fields along the way from Kansas to North Dakota. This picture does not do justice to the flattened crop.

We made it just into North Dakota at about 10:30 PM got lost looking for the town park (It was not our fault the signage was terrible) got the camper unhooked, cooled down and hope to be sleeping by midnight.  Still no internet at the campground or on the phone.

Tomorrow the important stuff a toy show and later a toy auction…

Saturday, we were woken up by the sound of thunder and heavy rain, which continued for a couple of hours. We decided to hook the camper up...in the rain...and make our way to LaMoure for the toy show. We would decide once we were there if we were going to park overnight or wait until after the auction in the evening to move the camper.

The sun was just starting to burn the clouds off by the time we got there to see what treasures we couldn't live without. We made the rounds, stopping to visit with several of the vendors and Al found five or six "must haves" on their tables.

We had finished spending the allotment for the show by 1pm. We decided to take the camper the 60 miles into Jamestown, get it set up, then come back in time for the auction at 6pm. We had a strong south wind pushing us and it didn't take long to get registered at the campground, get parked and set up. We had to dry camp last night, and the night before it was water hydrant sharing with two other campers, so pressure wasn't that great. Here we have it all for the next couple of days...nice that we don't have to drive during those days.

They had about 300 toys at the auction sale and we sat through until the end. Al managed to come in under budget while still getting about 15-20 toys for the upcoming shows at Killarney, MB and Yorkton. Here the stack is just getting started.

It was a tough couple of days with no internet on the phones or in any of the areas we stayed at, but now we are back on track.

Tomorrow we pick up the stockpile of toys Mike has been storing for us in Pingree...