Friday, July 9, 2021 - Drove from Nomad's View near the Badlands National Park to Three Flags RV park in Rapid City, South Dakota. The drive was a short one of only two hours, but we stopped in Box Elder (our new home of reference) to pick up our mail at Americas Mailbox. This is were we are theoretically living as we have established our domicile in South Dakota. We then drove on the the Three Flags RV Park that we had stayed in the previous year. We are slotted to stay here for a week.

After setting up the RV, we just hung around the camper and began working on some of the small chores that have accumulated over time. We had a little problem that had been building up for about a year in that our water connector for our drinking water hose was stripped and would not hold the hose without leaking. I had previously been able to "jerry-rig" the system to work, but here it finally "gave up the ghost." We decided to use the water in our internal tanks until I could fix the connector which would be tomorrow.

Saturday, July 10, 2021 - This is a day that we set aside to work on the trailer an fix some of the small items that I had been putting off for some time. I had to empty the forward storage bay in order to take the sidewalls off for access to the water intake bibb. It turned out that it was not that hard to replace this bibb where you attach the drinking water hose to the trailer. I did have to go to Camping World to get a part though. I worked on this and several other things that had been piling up for a while. Felt nice to get them fixed. I then took everything out of the garage so that we could use that space while we were here in the Rapid City area. I placed the kayaks and bikes outside the trailer and locked them to the rig.

Sunday, July 11, 2021 - Lisa and I decided to take the EBike up to Hill City where I would rent a bike and we would take a ride on the Mickelson Trail. The George S. Mickelson Trial (named after a state governor who help build the trail) is a rails to trails route that extends all the way from Lead/Deadwood in the north to Edgemont in the south; a distance of 112 miles. It is a great unpaved trail that works great for bikes with a little wider tires than my road bike. I rented a bike in Hill City, but it was not the greatest bike and it seem to drain my energy more than it converted it into forward motion. We also decided to head south and did not realize that the entire first ten miles was all uphill. The gradient is not too bad with the worst at around four percent, but it does wear on you after a while when the bike does not fit well. Lisa had no trouble as her EBike just cruised up the hills. After eleven miles, I decided it was time to head back to the start point. I don't think I had to pedal at all on the return downhill run. The grade coming back made the ride pretty enjoyable. After the ride, we drove to a Mexican food restaurant about half way to Rapid City. They were busy and the service was a little slow, but the food was very good and I guess that is what really counts. Especially on this day since we did not have lunch and it was now about five in the afternoon. We then drove back to the RV and I took a nap. I was pooped out.

Monday, July 12, 2021 - I had to start the day with my dentists appointment in Rapid City. When I was here last summer, I had a crown replaced and it seems that I was going to have the same thing done to another tooth today. I broke off a large part of one tooth about six weeks earlier in the Dallas area, but since there was no pain and I had to schedule a dentist appoint out several weeks, we decided to head for Rapid City and have the work done there. Today was the day.

After about three hours at the dentist and a temporary crown, I headed back to the RV to see Lisa, Lisa had just completed a four mile walk and was ready to do something else. We decided to go to Ellsworth AFB to visit the RV park there and to go to the Auto Hobby Shop to replace the fuel filters on the truck. We found the Auto Hobby Shop right away and put the truck up on the lift. We replaced the filters and then headed out to a local spray car wash to wash the truck. The truck was not running right, and I had a Low Fuel Pressure light. Great! After washing the truck, we headed into Rapid City to do some shopping at Walmart. On the way to town, the Low Fuel Pressure light came on and the truck went into low power mode. We could only get about 50 mph out of it, so we set the local Ford dealer into the GPS and head for it; only about four miles away. Turns out that the filter mounted on the chassis under the driver seat was not tight enough. The filter cover has to be tightened until it "locks into place," but fearing that I might damage it, I stopped tightening with one more turn needed. This allowed air to enter the filter and cause the low pressure situation. The mechanic at the dealer tightened it and everything was fine after that. No charge too. Yea! We then drove over to Walmart for our biweekly shopping trip and the head on back to the RV.

It was a beautiful day and I spent a couple hours on the deck reading and relaxing.

Tuesday, July 13, 2021 - We journeyed up into the Black Hills to Lake Pactola, an alpine lake with extremely clear water. We put in our kayaks and traveled all around the lake in about three hours time. On the way back to our launch point, we got a call from my son, William, and were able to talk to him for about 45 minutes. It is always fun to hear from Will. After our kayak ride, we drove to the other side of the lake where we had a picnic lunch at a spot called Veteran's Point. It was only a seven-tenths of a mile walk. As we were finishing our lunch, it began to sprinkle, so we headed back to the truck an to our RV. We relaxed around the RV (short for I took a nap) and then Lisa prepared an excellent turkey, salad, and cheesy-pasta side dish dinner. It was great. Lisa is really a great cook which does not help my "muffin top."

In our discussions with William, Will and I both bemoaned the fact that we are both carrying around some extra weight. Me, quite a bit, and Will, more than he would like to carry (considering he has a wedding coming up.) We decided to set up a competitive challenge between the two of us where we both try to reduce our weight and then determine a winner by the highest percentage of weight lost. I feel that I clearly have an advantage over will since I weight so much more than he does, but we will be giving it a whirl. We have set October 1st as our date for final weight checks to determine a winner. My initial weight was 208 pounds, but that was in the evening and I had some clothing on. I decided to weight until the next morning and weight again and this time my weight was 204.8 pounds, so that is my starting point. Will weighed in at 191 pounds. We are off and running now to see who can lose the most weight.

Wednesday, July 14, 2021 - We started the day with a general cleaning of the RV before heading out to run errands. Our first errand was to get the rear suspension air bags repair by a company in Rapid City. Tyler, the mechanic who worked on the truck, did an excellent job. Turns out that he had to remove the air bag to tighten the air line elbow on the top of the unit. This required extra work, but he did it. An excellent job and it does not seem to be leaking after about five days. Tyler was not exactly sure of the best way to fix the air bag, so he did what every smart mechanic would do; he looked on YouTube. It worked and he was able to fix it right. He only charged me $47 for the work stating that he should have known how to do it from the start and that I should not pay for his "study" time. I gave him a $40 tip for his effort. I need to have the bag working.

After getting the trucked worked on and a quick Subway sandwich lunch, we traveled to a coin laundry to wash our RV rugs and a little clothing. After the laundry, we drove north of the Black Hills past Sturgis to the town of Belle Fourche, South Dakota to check out their museum and the large medallion in the ground behind the museum that commemorates the Geographic Center of the United States when you consider Hawaii and Alaska too. It is a pretty cool medallion that is about ten feet in diameter and has an official geodetic service marker in the middle as the surveyed location. The museum is pretty unique with lots of interesting items from the local area that were used by settlers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We spent about an hour and a half in the museum before taking a walk around the small city of Belle Fourche. We then drove back to our trailer for dinner and relaxing.

Thursday, July 15, 2021 - Our first "order of business" on this Thursday was to get some exercise with a hike up to Buzzard's Roost. The trailhead for this hike is found along-side the highway going up to Lake Pactola and Hill City. We had seen many vehicles there and had been wanting to give it a try. The first three-quarters of a mile were all up, but we felt comfort in knowing that the way back to the truck had to be mostly downhill. It was very pretty hike with a great view once you crested the ridgeline. We then followed a trail parallel to the ridgeline with a final uphill walk to Buzzard's Roost. The views were very nice and we stayed there for about 30 minutes. We then chose a different route for our return trip that went through a meadow and was basically a trail with numerous switchbacks heading down the hill. It was probably a half mile "as the crow flies," but a mile and a half by the switchbacks. This hike gave us four miles so far for the day.

We then drove to Sylvan Lake near Custer State Park. Sylvan is a small, alpine lake that Kay and I had gone ice skating on when we were assigned to Ellsworth AFB in the early to mid 1970s. It is a pretty lake and we hiked the trail all around the lake. Added another mile to our hiking tally for the day. Some rock climbing, but a pretty easy hike for the most part. We then decided to drive the "Needles Highway" since were were right there at the beginning of the road. All we had to do was pay to enter Custer State Park which cost $20 for a one-week pass. Just prior to reaching Sylvan Lake, we had to pass through two tunnels where the smallest was eight feet wide and ten feet tall. I had the kayaks on the truck, so we were a little taller than normal, but my main concern was the width. We moved through with a few inches on each side of the "duelly fenders." As were moved along the Needles Highway, we came to two more tunnels, but, luckily, the width for both of them was a few inches more than what we had already passed through. Turns out that even full-sized tour buses can get through the tunnels. I would not have thought that would be possible. See the video about this activity.

After our tour of the Needles Highway, we decided to head for Sheridan Lake for some kayaking. Sheridan is about half the size of Lake Pactola, but it still has the qualities of an alpine lake. We kayaked halfway around the lake and then decided to cut back across the lake to the shoreline where we had started. There is a launch and a state campground where we put the kayaks into the water. We ended up with an hour and a half of kayaking before packing everything up on the truck and heading back to camp. This was a very fun day with lots of activities and great exercise. This is helping me with my weight reduction program.

Friday, July 16, 2021 - We had decided that we would have the bearings on the RV repacked with grease, so we had set up an appointment for this Friday morning. So, right after a light breakfast, we broke down camp and got ready to take the trailer about five miles to the local Camping World Service Center. We arrived at about 9:00, but the service manager said that they would not begin the work on the rig until about 1:00 in the afternoon. After we dropped off the rig, we drove to Ellsworth AFB to the Outdoor Adventure Center where I planned to rent a bicycle more suitable to the hard-packed dirt of the Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills. Lisa and I were going to go for a bike ride out of Deadwood, South Dakota while the RV was in the shop. I was able to rent a very nice bike at Ellsworth for $36 for the entire week. As we were heading to Deadwood to start our bike ride, I remembered that I had forgotten my CamelBack water carrier in the rig, so we stopped by Camping World to pick it up. When we arrived, we found that they had just started working on the bearings and had pulled the tires off of one side of the rig. What they found was troubling. Two of the shackles for the suspension system had completely broken off of the frame and the main suspension carrier was hanging free. This was not a good thing. We now knew that we needed to find someone to weld the shackles back to the frame. Camping World recommend a place called T&T Welding, so I decided to drive to their shop to talk to them about the job. This would give me a chance to "size them up too." They seemed really nice and said that they could do the job. They actually specialize in trailers, so we set up an appointment for the following Friday (their earliest opportunity). After the appointment was made, it was back on the road up to Deadwood to begin our ride on the Mickelson Trail. This trail is interesting in that the entire first ten miles of the trail from Deadwood are uphill. The grade is mostly up to four or five percent with a slight touch of six percent here and there, but it is a little demanding; especially with me on a diet and hungry most of the time. Seems to affect my energy levels. But, we kept moving up the hill. At about the five mile point, it began to rain and rain was forecast for the area, so we 'turned tail" and headed back to the truck. Turned out to be mostly sprinkles, but we still got in nine miles. After the ride, it was back to the RV due to showers in the area.

Saturday, July 17, 2021 - On this Saturday morning, we decided to go into Rapid City and run some errands, mostly shopping for food. We then went to a spray car wash and washed the truck. We have developed a system where we can wash the truck in about 30 minutes; including wiping if down afterwards. We had talked to a fellow traveler who had raved about a new cleaning product that is a ceramic wax. We bought a spray bottle of it and decided to find a tree to park under (need to be cool when you apply wax) wax the truck. We did this and it came out very nice. As soon as we finished the wax job, it started to rain; sometimes you just can't win. After waxing the truck, we traveled to a laundry to use a large washer to wash our bedding from the RV. While washing the bedding, I worked on the blog since most laundries have WiFi capability. After the laundry, we moved over to Lowes to pick up some cleaning materials and attachments for our water connection to the RV. I immediately installed the quick-release water connector as soon as we returned to the RV.

Sunday, July 18, 2021 - We started the day with a 30-mile bike ride. Lisa did a great job on her E-Bike. We are working hard to get our weight down and improve our fitness. We have been doing pretty well with it lately. It was a nice day and we have a great route that starts right at our RV campsite. After the ride, we relaxed and worked on the blog. I even took a nap. Sure is nice to be retired.

Monday, July 19, 2021 - Since we had ridden 30 miles yesterday on our bikes, Lisa decided, due to a sore backside, to go for a four-mile walk while I went for another 30-mile ride on my bike. It was a great ride and lots of fun. We then drove to Hill City in the Black Hills to ride the 1880 Train that goes from Hill City to Keystone. It was a fun ride and allowed us three hours to explore Keystone. Keystone (and Hill City) are tourist cities with lots of restaurants, T-Shirt shops, and other "nick-nack" shops. It was fun to see the town. There was also a business that uses chainsaws to create beautiful sculptures. Be sure to see the photos in the gallery or the video on the 1880 Train. After the train ride, we decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant located between Lake Pactola and Rapid City. They had a Fajita Quesedilla that is "to die for." We shared it and it was awesome, so we made sure to tell the chef that we like it. After that, it was on to the RV to settle in for the evening.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021 - We started the day with a drive to back up to Deadwood (about a 50 minute drive) where we took a second shot at the Mickelson Trail. This "rails to trails" route begins in Deadwood and the first ten miles is uphill. The worst gradient is only six percent, but on a mountain bike it was kind of strenuous. Previously, we had only gotten about five miles up the hill when rain drove us out. That would not be the case today. We continued up the hill for the full ten miles and a little more before we turned around. We ended up with 22 miles for the day. I was on a bike that we had rented from Ellsworth AFB, and it was a great bike. The entire ride back was downhill with virtually no pedaling required. Too easy really. Our arms and wrists got tired from the constant breaking on the downhill. After the ride, we moved back to the RV park to move the RV.

Seems that the power source we were using kept giving us an error code (open ground) that caused our surge protector to turn off the power. The owner of the RV park suggested that we move over one space. She asked that we make the move before 4:00 in the afternoon since she had another RV coming into our old spot. We think she felt that the incoming RV was much smaller and would not draw so much energy? Once we got back to the RV, the owner called and said that the people moving into our old spot were coming in early, so we jumped into action and moved over very quickly. We were moving the last of our items, including our flag, when the new camper was backing into our old spot. It all worked out well. After the move, we just read and worked around the RV. Watched some TV and other shows on our IPad and phones.

Wednesday, July 21, 2021 - Went Custer SP vis ctr Wildlife loop road then Iron mtn road with tunnesl - We started out the day with a drive to Custer State Park. Interestingly, South Dakota State Parks allow people to fly drones as long as you meet the requirements set out by the FAA; pretty neat. We went to the visitor center and went through all the displays. We then watched the 18-minute video that they show throughout the day where Kevin Costner (from the movie "Dances with Wolves") narrates a great video about the park. We both really enjoyed the video. We then took a drove on the Wildlife Tour Road. The southern part of the park is filled with lots of open land with scattered Ponderosa Pine trees. This is where the park keeps their herd of 1,400 head of Buffalo (American Bison). As soon as we got on the road, the traffic stopped and we were right in the middle of a herd of about 300 buffalo. It was pretty cool and fun. The buffalo literally ignore the tourists as long as the tourists do not get out of their cars and approach them. A buffalo can run at 30 mph, so the chances of outrunning one is quite remote. We then continued on the road an cam across several pronghorn sheep; a magnificent animal. We the drove to look at the scenery. We stopped and had a picnic lunch at the horse camp on French Creek. There were about 30 combination horse trailers with built in RV parked there and people were riding there horses on the numerous trails emanating from there. We then drove to check out Legion Lake and also Stockade Lake. They are pretty small, but very nice. We then drove to the east entrance to the park to take the "Iron Mountain Road" to Mount Rushmore. On this road, there are two very small tunnels to navigate and two "pig-tail" bridges that spiral down the road. You are turning so sharply and descending that you actually go under the road that you were just on. Again, pretty cool. The last tunnel, the Doane Robinson Tunnel, is pointed right at Mount Rushmore which is perfectly framed as you pass through the tunnel. This was great fun. We did encounter a pretty strong thunderstorm on Iron Mountain Road. It really poured down rain. We felt bad for some of the traveler on motorcycles who were getting pretty much soaked. After passing by Mount Rushmore, we went into Rapid City where we went to Subway and I got a sandwich. I was really hungry and Lisa decided to pass on a sandwich. Then back to the RV.

Thursday, July 22, 2021 - We started the day with another 30-mile bicycle ride. We are getting a lot of exercise this way. It was a great ride with very little wind and temperatures in the 80s. After we returned to the RV, we decided to wash and service all the bikes. When done, we would take the rental bike back to Ellsworth AFB and then go to the Commissary for food. After shopping for food, we went to a carwash and washed the truck. It came out great, but when we looked to the west, we saw rain coming. We then went to Americas Mailbox (our legal address and mailbox location) were we picked up our mail. After that it was back to the RV where we had a 3:00 phone call with a broker who is working with us on a Long Term Care policy. We are getting lots of information on these policies and working to make a decision on what to do. After our phone discussion, we set out to wash our clothing and dirty towels from the truck washing project. After that, we just relaxed around the RV park.

Friday, July 23, 2021 - We take the RV into the welder to have the shackles fixed. Finding this welding shop was a real blessing. Tod and Travis, the owners of T & T Welding and Repair are awesome people who really care about giving their customers quality service at a fair price. The, basically, treat each job like they are working on their own personal trailer or one belonging to a family member or friend. I informed them that we plan to take this trailer to Alaska next year and that we really want to avoid any suspension issues on that trip. They made plans to strengthen all the hangers and wet-bolts. They have a ton of experience since there are three generations of one family owning and doing the work in this shop. Todd Jones is the Patriarch of this business with his son, Travis, handling a fair amount of the management now. On top of that, Travis' son, Kolton, is actively involved in getting the actual work done on the rig. It was fun to watch, both Todd and Travis, keeping an eye on Kolton and new employee, Fred, as they fixed our trailer. They reinforced all of the shackles and even installed some 3" X 4" tube steel between the hanging shackles of the three axle system. This greatly strengthened the shackles and reduced flex when turning. Also, they lubricated all of the wet-bolts on the suspension and there are 20 of them. Even though I had asked previous mechanics to lube them, they did not do it because the "Zerk fittings" where the grease is inserted were plugged. Kolton and Fred drilled out the Zerks and made sure that they would accept the grease. I now own my own pneumatic grease gun and I plan to lubricate the wet-bolts myself periodically. They even welded two new mounting tips on our aluminum stairway for the rear deck. This was a big deal for us too. The ladder was essentially unusable in its condition and it is a real nuisance to haul around. Now it is functional, at least. There bill for six hours of work by two men plus providing the steel necessary to reinforce the shackles was $700 which we felt was very reasonable for the peace-of-mind that it brings to us. We even gave them a $200 tip for their efforts.

While the trailer was being worked on, we worked on several chores in Rapid City. We went to Starbuck's to get some coffee and work on the blog using the coffee shop's WiFi. We then went to the Chapel in the Hills in western Rapid City. This is a beautiful chapel that replicates one build about 400 years ago in Norway that is still there today. Be sure to see the gallery to see photos of this wonderful chapel. We then went to Napa Auto Parts to purchase an air-operated grease gun. Then off to Panera Bread for lunch of salads. While there, we received a call from Travis that our trailer was ready to pickup. After lunch, we went to pick it up. It sure was a good feeling to know that the suspension was now in solid shape and that the springs were not being support by only the frame with the broken shackles. We took the trailer to a gas station to fill up the 27-gallon tank for the generator and the 40-gallon tank for auxiliary vehicles.

Saturday, July 24, 2021 - Lisa and I started out the day with a bicycle ride. Lisa rode the EBike and I rode my Cervelo road bike. Lisa had found a new route by looking at the roads in our area with Google Maps. This turned out to be an excellent ride to the east of where our RV is located. There were very few cars and we did manage to get in 1,500 feet of climbing. When we got back to our RV park, we had 25 miles completed. I decided to ride a little farther, so Lisa returned to the RV while I put in another nine miles for a total of 34 miles. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and we even took a little nap. We did manage to make several calls to obtain reservations at the next two places that we will be traveling to once we leave Rapid City next Tuesday. We leave on Tuesday for a one-night stay in Buffalo, Wyoming and then off to Billings, Montana for two days.

Sunday, July 25, 2021 - We started the day with an early-morning hike on the Caves Valley Trail that is located about 15 miles due west of Rapid City in the Black Hills. This turned out to be an extremely beautiful hike with peaceful meadows and stream-side trails. The total distance was five miles and the elevation change was about 300 feet. We saw a wild turkey along the trail and we had to cross the creek on rocks on two occasions. Also, the creek is spring fed in many locations. Well into the hike, all of the water from the stream went underground and did not return to the surface for another mile down the trail. Kind of interesting that we had to cross the stream on rocks to keep from getting wet and then we were able to cross in several places on a dry streambed. The hike all the way out was mostly uphill, so we were pretty "tuckered" when we got back to the truck. Lisa and I are both trying to lose weight, so we are not eating to many carbohydrates; hence, we are a little low on energy for hiking and biking.

After the hike, we drove to a carwash in eastern Rapid City. Our truck was pretty clean, but we wanted to get the dust off so that we could wax it for the second time. We went to lunch at Subway (which I really like and is helpful in my weight-loss program) before we wax the truck. We are using a special wax that we recommended to us because it is based upon "ceramic" technology. It is supposed to repel water and bugs with ease. The first coat went on very nicely about a week ago, but it is recommended that we put two coats on for the best protection. After we finished the first waxing, it began to rain. We finished the second coat about two hours ago and it is now raining at our RV. Oh well? After the waxing was done, we went to a fuel station to fill our tanks before we leave the area on Tuesday. After filling the tanks, we returned to the RV to work on the blog and take it easy for a while.

Monday, July 26, 2021 - Today is the day that has forced us to stay in the Rapid City area for so long; Wayne is having a crown inserted at the dentist's office at 1:00 today. It takes two weeks to create a crown, so we have been forced to wait until our scheduled dental appointment. This should take about an hour and after that, we will have no external forces requiring that we stay here. Tomorrow, Tuesday, we will be off for Wyoming and Montana. I have a new crown and now we are ready to move the RV out of the Rapid City region.

In the morning, we worked on the trailer to get it ready to travel. I have to put the kayaks back in the "garage" and then attach the bikes to the kayak rack. It is not a very difficult task to complete, but it does take about 45 minutes to do. Both of our propane tanks were filled day-before-yesterday, so I don't have to worry about propane for heating, operating the refrigerator during travel, and cooking. With our shackle situation repaired, I am quite comfortable that our suspension is in good shape for travel.

After getting my crown, I drove into Rapid City to Who's Hobby Shop. I started my radio control flying experience right here in the Rapid City area. This hobby shop has been here for about 70 years and I was last here about 45 years ago. It is a very nice hobby shop with lots of stock for all potential hobbies. They also showed me the location of the Rapid City Prop Busters flying facility. It doesn't look like I will be able to get there, but it is interesting to know that the flying club where I started flying is still here and in operation. I purchased model airplane fuel line to use on our bicycling rear-view mirrors; worked great.