The final frontier...

Well, it's time to head back to California.  Gotta get the house packed up, looks like escrow will be done October 2nd.  South Dakota is OK scenery-wise, as long as you stay at the west end (Mt. Rushmore area) or east end (Sioux Falls area).  There is a WHOLE LOTTA nothin' in between.  Our whole run thru Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, saw a lot of dirt and sky, not much civilization.  Sioux Falls was kinda cool, 160K people scattered over a large patch of dirt.  It looked a lot larger than Santa Rosa which has 200K+.

Sioux Falls Park

A bird's eye view...

We stayed at a place called Tower RV Park. Convenient off and on the freeway and they give discount to customers of Alternative Resources.  It was an OK basic park, no pool or store, but the spaces were not crammed together and they had a new shower/restroom facility that was spacious and clean.  And their squirrels are of the red variety, not like the gray squirrels in CA.

On our way out of town, I had to stop and get our rear bumper repaired, one of the welds had broken and the bumper seemed to have gotten mangled somewhere along our travels, for the life of me I cannot figure out where I might have done it.  I know I bottomed out on a driveway during last year's trip south, which I guess could have weakened the weld enough to postpone its eventual breakage.  Nevertheless, I found a place in Worthing, SD, called Great Plains RV's.  They sell used RV's and trailers and service/repair them.  They also "rescue" RV'ers who need repairs while travelling away from home.  Scott at Great Plains RV's treated us very well, got us in promptly, they worked on the bumper for 3 1/2 hours but only charged me for 2 hours labor, and I would strongly recommend them if you are on the road and find yourself "in need".

Ouch!

I still can't figure out how the hole got punched in there?!

So we moved onward.  Tried out our first State Park campground.  Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is in the Bismarck/Mandan area of North Dakota.  This was a very nice area right on the Missouri River where the Heart River joins it.  The campground was more like a real campground, lots of trees and grass, nice "comfort stations", with water & electric sites and a central dump station.  Our first night there we got treated to an 85 degree thunderstorm accompanied by elephant tears for rain.  Jeanne made good use of her new toy, an emergency weather radio, and I got to hear a ringing phone ALL NIGHT LONG!  Gotta love it...

Camping, Fort Lincoln style...

View of Big Muddy, aka: the Missouri River, from the walking trail.

Well, time to inch back toward the left coast again. Onward ho!