Geeks on Tour Blog

Greetings from South Dakota Yep we made it to Badlands National Park. We were supposed to be in Rapid City by now, but when we pulled into the Visitor Center at Badlands, Jim noticed that one of our tires looked low. When you live in a home on wheels, you pay attention to those wheels!! He checks the air pressure all the time, so he knew they were all good yesterday. He got out the pressure gauge and checked the one that looked low and it was fine, so he checked the one beside it (our rear tires are dual) and it was EMPTY. He crawled underneath and saw where it was torn up. SO ... we aren't going to drive on that. That's why we have Good Sam Emergency Road Service! We've already used it 2 other times with this RV - we wouldn't be without it. BUT, our cell phones had NO service here. Makes it hard to call. He asked in the Visitor Center to use their phone and was able to place the call, but the nearest service place was 2-3 hours away. Oh well. Here's where we started today - the 'Cowboy Trail' in Valentine. You can see our rig with the yellow kayak in the background: Here's one of the road hazards in this part of the country, the farm equipment that can only travel 10 mph: I'm just so fascinated with the wide open spaces here. You can see the road for miles and miles and miles. I can't help but break into song, Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love, Don't fence me in. For the complete lyrics, click here. Then, we pulled off the Interstate towards the Badlands National Park: You don't see anything like this in Florida! Odie was a little cautious! And, here we are in the Visitor Center parking lot waiting for Good Sam Emergency Road Service. I've been in worse situations!! Jim is mounting the external cell phone antenna on the roof of the RV in hopes of getting enough signal to communicate with the road service folks. It worked!! Cool! We visited the visitor center ... I love Buffalos! (Jim tells me to call them American Bison ... I prefer Buffalo!) Then Odie and I explored a little and enjoyed the sunflowers: Then Jim and I cooked dinner, had a glass of wine, fired up the generator and raised the satellite dish to get on the Internet for a while - geez, Life IS Good! Now the road service guy, Joel, is here and we'll be on our way soon!