Counting the Days

188 days

That is the number of days since we returned from our last great adventure. That does not count our few weeks to Oregon to help Forrest and Somer with their house. Plus, this is our first adventure with the new truck! We've been pretty much all packed up for almost two weeks waiting for the fields to be ready, but today is the day (4/26), we are finally hitting the road and starting our Great Summer Adventure (GSA)! 

Barb has organized things, so Dakota has pretty much the whole back seat to herself! Well, most of the time. Dakota even has a brand-new comfy dog bed and a mat to cover the front and back to minimize dog hair!

108 Days

On our last night home, Dan, Bonnie, Kevin and Cheryl came over to say goodbye and have one last beer. Well, one turned into two, which turned into 3, which turned into multiple shots of fireball, which turned into us playing Cards Against Humanity which turned into us moaning and groaning as we tried to open our eyes the next morning. Ugh! We are going to miss those guys! It will be 108 days until we see them again!

As much as we love it here, we are ready for a change of scenery.  We are not at all apprehensive about leaving the house. Between the alarm, cameras, locked gates, people we have staying at the house and our neighbors, the house will be in good hands. Our closest neighbor works from home and her office window faces our house, well within rifle range, so she calls or texts when someone comes down our driveway asking if she should fire a warning shot or not! 

7,169 days

Our first day was a rather short one. We stopped by to see our niece Alana in Spearfish. Alana and her husband Ryan recently moved to Spearfish from Denver. Barb and I have not seen her in 15-20 years. We talked about it and we could not exactly figure it out. She was probably 18 or 19 and now, well, she is older than that. We determined it was closer to 20 than 15 so we are going to will say 7,169 days. I certainly would not have recognized her if I saw her on the street. She said she would have probably recognized me as I look like "Grandpa". I am not quite sure how I feel about that. 

They recently got a French Bull Dog so now Zoey has a cousin! It was payback time for Zoey as Sophie bit, pulled and tugged on Zoey's jowls, does not feel so good on the receiving end does it?!?!?

After an hour or so of visiting, we were on the road to our first destination for our GSA; Faith, South Dakota, located right on the 45th parallel!

We spent the night at their city park. At $10/night with electric it was a bargain. There is one water spigot available for 6 sites but a huge Class A parked near us was hooked up to it so we did not take on any water. We have not de-winterized yet anyway as it is still below freezing at night. Speaking of freezing, it was so nice out when we arrived we did not turn on the heat when we went to bed. We woke up to our inside thermostat display 42 degrees. We rock, paper, scissored who was going to take the dogs out and turn on the heater. Damn, Scissors cuts paper and I was the big loser!

In the morning we found these two cool statues in town. 

Our destination the next day was just a couple hours down the road, Mobridge South Dakota. This is the oasis of warm weather that I found while doing my research. Plus, bonus, it was on a huge body of water which mean possible fishing! This is also where I had my first Perception versus Reality moment of the trip. In my mind I pictured us arriving in Mobridge, a quaint lakeside town where the locals are friendly and people lined the banks of the lake pulling in walleye after walleye, saying "The fish are right here!". The reality of it was much different. Although the town is nice enough, it was not quaint and the water levels were so low that you had to walk 1/2 mile to get to the edge of the lake and I did not see a single fisherperson in sight! Combine that with the 20-30mph winds and ....well, lets just say my perception blew away with the wind. 

All cannot be lost here though right? There must be something fun to do in Mobridge. So I got on The Google to see what there is to do in Mobridge South Dakota. Up popped this result from Trip.com 10 Best Things to do in Mobridge. Perfect, exactly what I was looking for. So I clicked on the link and up popped not 10 things but 6 things. Two of which were The Badlands and Bear Country U.S.A. both back near Rapid.  3 of the 4 remaining items were restaurants, one of which was Burger King! 10 things to do in Mobridge, well 6, and one of them Burger King? Well, at least we had the #1 thing to do in Mobridge; The Klein Museum, so off we went! Pulled into the parking lot "Closed for the Season". Mobridge was a bust. 

Wait, we did find one thing to see. A Cowboy Riding a Walleye Sculpture!

So down the road we went. Found a nice little overnight spot at the Fort Rice Recreation Area at the boat ramp. Barb found it on Freecampsites.net. We got all settled in and set up behind a berm which protected us from the wind and were set for the night. You never really know if can really stay at some of these areas so when the Sheriff drove by and just waved, we figured we were good to go. Nice free spot if you are ever in this area. 

The next day we drove to Mandan to check out some antique stores. We spent a few hours perusing the stores but did not find any treasures. Then we checked into a nice little campground called Hillcrest Acres RV Park so Barb could get some work done on her computer. She still does some work for her old work (which we appreciate very much!) so we wanted a place with good internet. While she was doing the I flushed the lines and de-winterized the rig. Hillcrest offered full hookups and great wifi for $40 a night. Another perfect overnight stop!

383 days

We arrived at the farm on day 4 of our GSA and are all tucked into the shop where it is warmer and out of the wind. They had been without power for over 6 days. It turned back on about an hour after we got there. I guess we brought some good luck!

On our journey we averaged 10mpg and saw diesel prices that ranged from $4.71(Bismarck)-5.89 (Minot). Both were about what we were expecting but we hope to see those fuel prices drop in the coming weeks. 

It has been 383 days since we started planting last year. Last year I arrived at the farm on April 11th and we started planting somewhere around the 15th. This year, it is more than 2 weeks later. Depending on weather and the soil, it will take 3-4 weeks to get everything in the ground. Sadly, we can only stay 12 days, not nearly long enough to get everything in the ground but hopefully we can put a good dent in it!