Too many adventures for one day :(

I should have figured it was going to be a different sort of day today, when the mosquitoes took a pint of blood out of me this morning when I took Emma on her first outs.  They were even biting through my clothes.  :(  We headed out of Mitchell, SD, shortly after 8:30 just as a rain storm arrived.  For about 200 miles, everything went fine.  Then when we pulled into a rest area for lunch, Pam decided she really wanted to visit Wall Drug, once again.  She thought it was just off the interstate with plenty of parking.  My memories told me it was in the middle of town with skinny streets and parking in the middle of the street, but sometimes I get locations I've been to mixed up.  I told them that they could lead the way since they had two sets of eyes to lead us to our destination.  It turned out that my memory was correct.  :(  Stan led us into town, and the place was packed with vehicles in the middle of the street parking.  Because I had no choice, I followed his right turn through the middle of that mess.  OMG!  It was like threading this big rig and toad through the eye of a needle!  I can't believe I made it without scraping several cars and a protruding mini-bus.  When we finally found the RV parking, it was packed to the gills, so we just kept going and returned to I-90. 

That's when the famous South Dakota winds hit us broadside.  I hate driving in high winds, since I got blown off the road in Arizona on I-10 a few years back.  Our destination for the night was less than 100 miles away, so we persevered.  This rig handles much better, and is less affected by the winds we encountered, than the Sightseer was. (thank goodness)  It wasn't long before Pam called me on the walkie-talkies, and told me she didn't think we could get to the campground without having problems with several tunnels in the Black Hills area.  I thought my trucker's GPS could guide us there safely, but by this time I didn't want to take a chance.  That's when we decided to change our destination to Deadwood instead of Custer.

We pulled off of the Interstate and drove to a nearby gas station to discuss our options.  We decided to go to the Deadwood KOA instead since Pam also wanted to visit Deadwood.  Alrighty then....back to the Interstate.  As I followed Pam and Stan through a left turn back onto I-90, I did my cursory check of the rear camera monitor to check out the toad, and it was gone!  My stomach sank, and my heart jumped into my throat!  Oh no!!!  As I stomped on the brakes, it finally occurred to me that when I switched my left turn indicator on, the camera switched to the left side instead of the back view.  Ugh, what a scare!  I hope I get used to these new accessories soon.  :( 

What a surprise when we arrived at the KOA to discover that the entrance road went straight up one of the "Black" hills.  As you may know, KOA's can be quite pricey, and this one definitely is.  We were so worn out from the last two days, that we paid for two nights anyway.  Then it was further up the hill to our campsites which can only be described as minuscule.  I whacked the picnic table with the side of the rig as I tried to maneuver into the pullthrough site.  I had to unhook the toad and park it behind Pan's rig since there is no room behind mine.  Maybe I'll take a picture tomorrow when I'm in a little better mood, and it isn't raining.  There is a dog run, though, on the side of the hill, and Emma enjoyed her time there off leash before the rain became constant.

It looks like we'll scratch the Crazy Horse Monument for this trip, and just visit Deadwood tomorrow.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.  For now, I'm pooped.  600+ miles in two days, with the ensuing challenges, has me worn out.  On a positive note, Pam, Stan, and I had quite a good chuckle over today''s adventures before I ran back between the raindrops to my rig.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later,  Judy