Category: 2019

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2019 Road Trip – Badlands National Park

We arrived on Saturday and after getting the camper parked and setup, we elected to head back out the East entrance of the National Park so that we could jump on I-90 West and stop off at the town of Wall, SD to visit the famous Wall Drug Store. After seeing non-stop signs advertising the Wall Drug store along I-90 for well over 300 miles, we felt we owed them a visit. It’s definitely a tourist trap, but worth seeing at least once. We purchased a couple of trinkets (which we didn’t think were badly priced) and I enjoyed a delicious vanilla soft ice cream cone before we departed.

From there we re-entered the National Park from the West side and drove the South Dakota 240 scenic loop through the park and back to the campground. Just prior to re-entering, we pulled off of the road and watched three bison (buffalo) graze and the lay down. Shortly after pulling back onto the road, we encountered a fairly sizeable Prairie Dog town. There were hundreds of prairie dogs and they were all on alert although cars didn’t seem to bother them. Once we got inside the park we stopped at several scenic overlooks (which were all incredible). We also pulled off the road and watched a group of bighorn sheep graze in a field adjacent to the highway.

  • Beth of the Badlands

On Sunday we started the morning early (because we’re still on Eastern time) and we were glad we did because the temperature eventually reached 91. We went directly to the trailhead for the Notch Trail. Although it’s only a 1.3 mile (round trip) trail, it’s considered “moderate” due to the amount of climbing (including a a log ladder climb up a cliff wall). The ladder and several portions of the trail along cliff edges aren’t for those afraid of heights. Based on this, I wasn’t sure Beth would be willing to hike the trail. We even encountered one down hill drop (and switchback) that was very unnerving from a visual perspective (it looked like you’d go over the cliff if your footing wasn’t perfect), and she was quite concerned but handled it perfectly. The effort was worth it for the view once we reached “the notch” which overlooked the valley below. The view was incredible and we could actually see our campground from it. The return trip was much easier (I guess we were used to it) until we reached the ladder again. We had to climb back down the ladder backwards which was not a comfortable exercise. Once we got about one third of the way down it got easier, but our quadriceps were burning.

  • Notch Trail Ladder
  • Us at the Notch
  • Notch View Toward Campground
  • View of the Notch from Below

That was it for our Badlands hiking adventures. On the way to the Visitor’s Center we pulled off the road and devoured the delicious sandwiches that Beth was kind enough to make and haul in her backpack all the way in and back out of the hiking trail.

  • View from Lunch Stop

From there we checked out the Visitor Center and gathered as much Badlands knowledge as we could handle. All National Parks were celebrating the 103rd anniversary of the National Park Service on Sunday by allowing free entry into the park and providing free cake and Ice cream. I partook in the cake and ice cream and it was delicious.

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2019 Road Trip – Interior, SD

Today we continued our migration West to the Badlands. We clocked our 3,000th mile on this road trip and entered the Mountain time zone. We stopped at the Rest Area on the East side of the Missouri River to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (located at the Rest Area). Although it was a cloudy day, the views of the Missouri River were excellent and we were glad we took the time to stop and visit.

  • Railroad Bridge and I-90
  • Sacagawea

From there we headed on to our campground just South of the Badlands National Park. I guess my research on this portion of the trip was a bit “lacking”, as it turned out that we had to enter Badlands National Park in order to get to our campground. Since this was the first National Park we were entering on this road trip, we splurged for an Annual Pass knowing that we have several more National Parks ahead of us. From there the fun started. When you enter the park at the Eastern entrance, you quickly hit the steep downhill switchbacks with minimal shoulder. This seemed to make my co-pilot quite nervous and any attempt on my part to enjoy the incredible scenery was met with a stern lecture about keeping one’s eyes on the road.

We arrived at Badlands Motel and Campground without incident. This campground is all about location. We had beautiful scenery of the Badlands from our camper and we could actually see the National Park entrance out our front window. The sites were large with plenty of space between campers, but for some strange reason the 50 Amp sites didn’t have sewer hookups. We didn’t know what to expect the temperatures to be so we chose a 50 Amp site (so we could run both air conditioners without concern) just in case it got hot and we’re glad we did as it got up to 91 degrees on Sunday. We used the campground showers on Saturday (which could have used a good scrubbing) and our own on Sunday. The best part is that we were in dark sky country. I took my shower after dark on Saturday and needed my cell phone flashlight to find my way.

  • Badlands Motel and Campground – Site 35
  • Badlands Motel and Campground – Site 35
  • View from Inside Camper

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2019 Road Trip – Salem, SD

We continued heading West again today on I-90 and landed about an hour into South Dakota. We are staying at Dakota Sunsets RV Park and Campground. This is a nice campground with friendly owners. The roads and site pads are dirt/gravel so it might be a bit muddy here if it rains, but that’s not a problem today. They have nice manicured grass between sites so we setup the cat habitat again today so the crew could enjoy some outdoor time. They did fine until they saw the cats that live in the tool shed across the drive from our campsite. We had to put them back in the camper and before I knew it a plate of cat food had appeared at the end of our site (I wonder where that came from?). We will be heading for our campsite near the Badlands first thing in the morning.

  • Dakota Sunsets – Site #35
  • Dakota Sunsets – Site #35
  • Dakota Sunsets Resident Kitties – Zoom & Zip
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2019 Road Trip – The SPAM Museum

Both my wife and my son will tell you that I am completely incapable of reading or acknowledging the existence of information scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen when watching Sports or News channels. Similarly, I’m much like Clark Grisold and not big on paying much attention to signs along the road, whether they are advertising billboards or signs containing information that the Department of Transportation probably spent countless hours deciding that I need to know as the operator of a motor vehicle.

So I considered it a “sign” from above (pun intended) when I noticed a billboard advertising the SPAM Museum as we headed up I-35 (just North of I-90) on our way to our campground in Ellendale, MN. Fortunately, Beth was happy to oblige and today’s adventure was a trip to Austin, MN to visit Hormel’s SPAM museum. It was a hoot! They definitely have a great marketing department that knows how to market their pork product. They even had multiple employees wondering around offering samples of multiple flavors of SPAM (using a pretzel stick as the serving utensil instead of a toothpick).

During my senior year in college my high school buddy Tom and I elected to live off campus and we had regular SPAM based meals. Every week one of us had to come up with a new SPAM based meal (he called it a SPAM-O-Rama). Therefore, I thought I knew everything I needed to know about SPAM. Until today, I had no idea that there was so much information about SPAM that I had yet to acquire. I’m not saying that the SPAM Museum will be the highlight of this trip, but I will say that Yellowstone has a hard act to follow…

  • Beth in Front of the Museum
  • Brian Trying to Measure Up
  • SPAM Conveyor Belt
  • SPAM Options
  • From the Gift Shop

When we returned back to Ellendale, we stopped in at Steve’s Meat Market. What a wonderful meat emporium. We procured some bratwurst, pork burgers, summer sausage, and two steaks (a ribeye for Beth and a New York Strip for me). We were unable to source any firewood, so we cooked the steaks on the grill and ate them with baked potatoes and Minnesota sweet corn. The meal was delicious.

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2019 Road Trip – Ellendale, MN

Today we departed from Moline, IL in a fairly heavy rainstorm. Fortunately, with the help of modern radar applications, Beth was able to pick a lull in the storm to hook up the Tahoe and we hit the road. We experienced fairly heavy rain for the first hour or so as we headed West on I-80. We picked up I-380 just West of Iowa City and headed North through Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. When I-380 ended, we continued on with US-218 which tended to switch back and forth from limited access to general highway, but always remained 4 lane and very smooth. We experienced heavy North winds on a good portion of US-218 (probably a preview of our upcoming trip across I-90). In Northern Iowa we took US-18 West to I-35 North. The campground, Crystal Springs RV Resort, is adjacent to I-35 just 13 miles North of I-90.

The campground is excellent with large, level, gravel sites and grass and foliage separating you from your neighbors. There aren’t very many tall trees so picking up satellites isn’t an issue from any site. Verizon LTE coverage was excellent (30-40 Mb/s download speeds). Maybe it’s because our site was up front near the office, but this was one of the few campgrounds where I could honestly say that the WiFi coverage was excellent (20Mb/s down and 10Mb/s up). The bathhouse had extremely clean individual shower rooms containing a sink, shower, and toilet.

We will be spending three nights here resting up before we start the major touring portion of our summer trip. The local weatherman has provided a Chamber of Commerce weather forecast with clear skies, highs in the lower 70’s, and lows in the mid to low 50’s throughout our stay.

  • Crystal Springs RV Resort Site #47
  • Crystal Springs RV Resort Site #47
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2019 Road Trip – Moline, IL

Today we started our migration West for the touring portion of our trip. We left LaGrange, IN around 9:30 AM and arrived at the Fisherman’s Corner Recreation Area Campground along the Mississippi River in Moline, IL at around 3:29 PM (EDT). We have a great view of the river and locks from our campsite. The site is paved, very long, and perfectly level. There are no water (there are fresh water spigots throughout the campground) or sewer hookups, but the sites do have 50 amp electrical service. We have great Verizon voice and data coverage (over 15Mb/s download speed). The campground is fairly wooded, but we are able to pickup satellites 110 and 119 on the Dish Western arc which gives us the Rays baseball game and Davenport, IA local channels in Standard Definition (ESPN, etc in High Definition).

This is another great Army Corps of Engineers campground and we will stay here again when heading West via I-80.

  • Fisherman’s Corner – Site #17
  • Fisherman’s Corner – Site #17
  • View from Our Site of Barges Leaving Locks
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2019 Road Trip – Steam & Gas Show

Today marked the start of LaGrange County’s annual Steam & Gas show so we got Dad’s antique tractors out. These were my grandfather’s tractors and Dad spent much of his childhood on both of them.

They are both 1940 models. One is a John Deere A and the other is a Ford 9N. They are both in excellent running shape and the John Deere is in great shape visually as well. Unfortunately, the shop that literally took years (I’m not being sarcastic) to overhaul the engine on the Ford left it sitting outside a lot, so it probably needs a paint job.

  • 1940 John Deere A and Ford 9N

Starting the John Deere A is a bit more complicated than pressing the remote start button on your key FOB. It is started manually by hand turning the flywheel. In order to make it easier to turn the flywheel, there is a petcock on both cylinders that you open to reduce compression. Then you turn the flywheel (which turns significantly harder than the Wheel of Fortune game wheel) and once the engine starts firing, you close both petcocks (there’s also some carburetor choke action if you’re cold starting).

After a little cleanup on the John Deere A we took both tractors out to the 4-H Fairgrounds at the John Deer A’s top speed of 6MPH. Sadly, the time has come to find good new homes for these tractors and Dad placed “For Sale” signs on both of them.

There was a lot of activity at the Steam & Gas show and many incredible looking old tractors. Some of them would have been fairly young back in the late 70’s when I was working at LaGrange County Ford Tractor (in High School), so I’m not sure how they could be considered “antiques” (it’s barely been 40 years), but it was still fun to see them.

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2019 Road Trip – New House Batteries

Earlier this year when we were planning for the Refrigerator Conversion, I anticipated that there was a good chance we would need to replace the 3 1/2 year old house batteries in the RV. When there is no external power source (120V AC shore power or the generator), the refrigerator runs off of the house batteries via the inverter. Yesterday we decided that it was time to dump our black tank, so we packed up the RV and headed off to the county 4-H Fairgrounds where they have an RV dump station and suggest a voluntary donation of $15. This provided a perfect opportunity to test running the refrigerator off of the house batteries, because the weather was way too perfect for the generator and air conditioning.

When I disconnected the external AC power I checked the house battery voltage on both the power panel display and the inverter display and both read 12.2V which is too low for batteries that should be completely charged. I started researching my battery options last night. The NAPA deep cycle lead acid batteries I paid $105 for in 2016 are now $150. While I was researching I received an E-Mail from Sam’s Club reminding me that their 24 hour Member’s Only sale started at midnight and I decided to see if they had any deep cycle batteries on sale. I soon discovered that they had Duracell AGM batteries on sale for $159 and I considered this a sign from above.

  • House Batteries

When I got up this morning I called the Fort Wayne Sam’s club, reserved three batteries, and promptly yanked the current batteries out of the RV and placed them in the Tahoe. When Mom and Dad returned home from having breakfast with Dad’s 1955 high school class the three of us hopped in the Tahoe and headed for Fort Wayne (Beth stayed home to prep her lasagna for tomorrow’s family gathering). We grabbed the batteries, did a splash and dash topping off the Tahoe with $1.42 Sam’s gasoline, and stopped in at Taco Bell for a $1 menu lunch.

The new batteries installed with no issues. I will perform a boon-docking test (i.e., disconnect shore power) some time next week and see how long we last on the batteries.

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2019 Road Trip – Dutch Aire Amish Refrigerator Conversion

Just 4 1/2 miles down the road from the farm my Dad grew up on is JC Refrigeration. JR the owner has perfected the replacement of the cooling units on both the Norcold and Dometic gas absorption refrigerators found in most RV’s. He can either replace your existing gas absorption cooling unit with his upgraded version, or replace it with the same type of compressor that comes in residential refrigerators (with either 120V AC or 12V DC versions).

I chose the 120V AC residential compressor replacement. Although it eliminates the capability of running the refrigerator off of propane, the residential compressor (a Samsung) only draws 0.8 Amps and should be able to run for quite a while off of our three house batteries. Since we have yet to boon-dock (although we hope to on this year’s trip out west), we felt we could live with this limitation.

JR has an impressive facility and manufactures the cooling units right there in his shop. I arrived just before 8 AM and they were just finishing up the RV in front of me (they open at 6 AM). They were just finishing up the conversion when Dad arrived to checkout the process at 10AM. At that point JR began rerouting the RV wiring so that the refrigerator outlet is connected to our inverter so that it can run off of battery when we don’t have AC power or the generator running.

Once everything was completed we went back up front and paid and then JR gave Dad and I a little tour of his assembly and test area. He has a real nice operation and now our refrigerator can go from off (and hot) to 35 degrees in a matter of just a few hours. We no longer have to keep the temperature setting on 9 (Max) and hope. At 90 degrees the refrigerator had no issue keeping the inside temperature in the mid 30’s on the 5 setting and the freezer is always near zero degrees.

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2019 Road Trip – Elkhart County Fair Tractor Pull

Today Dad and I attended the Tractor Pull with our close family friend Paul. Dad and Paul have been attending for many years and have it down to a science. We arrived before 8 AM when there was no entrance fee. Then we headed straight to the Elkhart County Exchange concession stand for all-you-can-eat pancakes. By the time we finished our $7 worth of pancakes and sausage it was time to head to the grandstands and see the first class of pullers (21,000 lb Farm Stock).

At Noon we headed back to the midway to eat lunch at the Pork concession stand. My pork burger was delicious. After lunch we headed back to the grandstands and watched several classes pull until we decided to leave at around 4 PM. We grabbed some ice cream from the Dairy Barn concession stand to eat on our way to the parking lot. The weather was perfect and we had a great day.

  • Tractor Pull
  • Tractor Pull