Thursday, August 1, 2013

23 July 2013: Rapid City, SD to Victor, ID

This was going to be a long day and so we planned to get out of Rushmore Resort Campsite no later than 7:00 am.
We were right on target, but when we hooked up the truck to the RV, we found the tow lights on the truck would not work. Our new found friend Grant and John worked on checking the connections, trying new wiring etc for almost an hour and finally got the lights to come on. But the turn signals would not work. It was not 8:30 am and we decided to get on our way. If were pulled up, we were going to say “Oh, really Officer, they were working when we left this morning”.
So that was 3rd of our problems – perhaps that will be the end and we will not have such issues any more.
The first half of our trip was again very tedious. Flat land with no vegetation or habitation of any sort. All through out that day and also during our drive from Iowa to Rapid City along I-90, we saw signs saying: "Road closed when flashing. Go back to (and here insert the name of the little town we had just left behind us)". Once in a while, we would see a house (or homestead) all by its lonesome self set well back from the road. It boggles my mind to think of what their life must be like in the winter.
Again we had very strong cross winds. It was only after I pulled into the campsite, that night, did I realize how tight I had been gripping the wheel. 
Once we got closer to the Tetons, the scenery changed dramatically. Our campsite was 22 miles west of Jackson, WY, just across the border into Idaho, in a small town called Victor. To get to Victor, we had to go through a mountain pass that had a 10% grade going up for 5 miles and another 5 miles of 10% downward grade.  I could see that John was concerned about the steep grade, but knew me well enough to not ask to take over the wheel.  
We decided to take the next day off – to rest – but I put in 10 hours of work as I needed to get caught up. John worked on the towing lights with the help of another RV guy who happened to have had the same problem at one time. Mark knew exactly where the obscure fuse was located and not only replaced it, but gave us a second one as a spare. He also determined that the problem with the stairs was not a fuse, but a bad motor. So we have decided to wait till we get back home for that. In the meantime, we bought a sturdier aluminum folding steps from Lowes Hardware (in Rapid City) to help us in and out of the vehicle. At every stop, John very gallantly places the steps in position so I can get down from the RV. 

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