... we've been able to have the door open?" Joan asked. It is 63º and glorious this morning in Ogallala, NE. A time zone change yesterday, so we were up early. One more driving day - really looking forward to settling in at Hart Ranch. 267 miles to do.
Since we left Texas, it was blazing hot. Until we got to the overnight in Kansas... where it was raining and windy when we got up. Seems like this trip has been more about the endurance of getting there rather than enjoying the traveling. But, this is a nice change of pace this morning, with the door open and Rufus listening to the birds.
We'll be more leisurely this morning about breaking camp and hitting the road. :-)
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Made it!
Rufus was a bit miffed as we rolled northwest: I told him there wouldn't be any thumpy road... and there was thumpy road. Not as bad as yesterday, and not as long. But still...
Fortunately for him, the best ride in the motorhome is on my lap.
Two lane roads most of the way in Nebraska...
And, a mid-post music trivia question: in the photo below, there is a long train running...
If you said, "The Doobie Brothers, 1973," you get 15 bonus points. Hard to see in that photo, but all those train cars are full of coal (coming from Wyoming to a power plant near you.
By the time we got north of Alliance, NE, the road gets hilly and twisty...
We stopped in Chadron for lunch - while I parked the rig at Wally World, Joan went through the drive-up at the nearby Taco John's. She took this photo for Stephanie...
Next stop: Hart Ranch. As we got into South Dakota, you could see the orographic lifting of the clouds as they came over the Black Hills...
Then, the first views of the Black Hills in the distance...
By the time we got to the Hermosa area, the clouds were building...
Someone is going to get rained on. Turns out, it was us...
It pounded pretty good for about 10 minutes. I was hoping it would rinse some of the bugs off the front of the coach. It didn't.
Another 10 minutes, and we were dry, and pulling into Hart Ranch. I went inside and got us checked in. When I came out, Joan had the cargo trailer mostly ready to unhook from the motorhome to make it easier to put it on our site. And then... CHUNK! The worm gear inside the nose jack on the trailer collapsed. Well, crap. We slowly drove to the site... a neighbor two down could see we were having an issue and asked if we needed a jack to lift the trailer off the Equinox. "Yes, sir, we do - and thank you very much." In a few minutes we had the trailer in place on the site and went back to get the coach.
I called Blake's Trailer Sales and Repair (where we bought this trailer), explained the situation, and the service guy asked if we could have it in first thing in the morning. "Yes, sir, we can, and I do appreciate that." In the meantime, we'll run into Rapid City and pick up a portable jack that can handle the lifting and just keep it in the trailer.
We got the motorhome set up on the site, and I took Rufus for a short walk... short because within a couple minutes of him coming out, it started to rain. Looks like we'll get a break for a couple hours (time to run into town and get a jack), and then more rain all evening. Our timing was good.
Welcome to South Dakota! Looks like several days of rain and thunderstorms ahead, so we may not be out riding right away. But, we're here! And, it isn't hot.
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Thunderstorms rolled in late this afternoon. Joan ran into town, I stayed with Rufus in the motorhome. It went from light rain to pounding rain. When I heard the first thunk of hail, I started up the motor and pulled the slideouts in. The rain was really pounding, but the hail never got bigger than pea size. No issue. Ruf and I did have some concerns, though.
When Joan got back, she waited in the car for the rain to ease up a bit. It had come down so hard on her way into town that she had to pull off the road because she couldn't see. So, that's fun.
It was still raining when she got back. Checking radar, we could see that it would pass by at 8:30 or so. That gave us time before it got too dark to get the bikes out of the cargo trailer and get the Equinox hooked up to the trailer. The trolley jack Joan brought back did a fine job with raising the trailer tongue so I could back the Equinox hitch under it.
Joan put the bike strap-down stuff away while I put covers on the bikes (they aren't used to sleeping out in the weather)...
So, more work than we were intending to do with the arrival. There's still stuff to get done around the site (later), but we'll be ready to get the trailer to the trailer service place first thing in the morning.
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