What a wonderful week we had

Man, this has been a great week. We did a lot and had some fun along the way.

Sunday, it rained. All. Day. Long. We stayed inside watched tv and basically chilled.

Monday, was clear. We put ourselves to the task we had been holding off on forever. Cleaning Beau. Started about 8:30. Finished about 5. Giving an RV a bucket wash (no hose washing allowed) is a long, tiring, but needed task. Tiring, especially when you are looking at a 35 foot long, 12 feet high and 8 foot wide vehicle.We split up the body. Bev climbs up the ladder and does the top half. I do the lower half as high as I can reach. Wax on, wax off…for hours…inch by inch, foot by foot. Next, while Bev tackled the windshield, I took to the tires which were pretty bad looking. We had them rotated while in Colorado, so the rims were super dirty. I pulled out the Barkeepers Friend to cut through the grime and got those rims bright and shiny. Talk about being sore and tired! We went out to dinner as neither of us had the energy or were in the mood to prepare something. But Beau is sure handsome now.

Tuesday, we drove out to the Badlands National Park. But after our long drive there, we discovered it is one busy park. The visitor center was elbow to elbow. Couldn’t really walk without bumping into someone. Forget about being able to read the displays. So we left to come back on another day bright and early.

Wednesday was another day at the domestic home front. We went shopping. Purchased a state sticker map for our RV. Below is the map as posted on our RV with the states we have hit so far. Also bought groceries, got a lawn dart game from Walmart. Then, back home, I worked on blog posts and Bev made some changes to our reservations in November. I took the dogs over to the dog run they have here and  they had a blast. Quiet days are just as much a part of RV living as the sightseeing.

Thursday, we drove to the Wind Cave National Park. We managed to make the 8:40 tour. We both were surprised how much we liked it. (not really cave aficionados)

Friday was surprising. I found a short National Forest hike just a quarter mile from the campground called the Stratobowl Trail. We were hiking along when we spied a big wire cage with slabs in it. Turns out to be a historic marker for a world record setting balloon flight to the stratosphere… get this…in 1935. They made it to 72,395 feet. Wow, who knew. After the hike and a bite to eat we went on an unplanned excursion to the Fort Meade Recreation Area to check out BLM campsites and see what it had in the way of history. Once we finished our little trip we returned home to spend the rest of the day on blog posts.

Saturday was the icing on the cake. We returned to Badlands, bright and early, as in up at 4:45 AM and out the door, so we could really take it all in. Dogs stayed home because they aren’t allowed on the trails. Even got to see some wildlife – bison and bighorn sheep. On the way home, we stopped at the Minuteman National Historic Site.

That wraps up our week. We’ll get the photos and writeups of the places we visited written and posted as soon as we can. A lot of work goes into each post. More than we thought. But we are enjoying it. Hope you are too. If you do, drop us a comment once in awhile to let us know what you like, what you’d like to see in the future and any other words (kind we hope!). Till next time…