I truly am retired...my first retirement check from UCD hit my account today :) Life is good.
Were any of you wondering why Rich was fiddling with the rear camera yesterday? Even if you weren't here's the story. The camera sits behind a curved lens at the top of the rear of the coach. When it's looking straight down it can see pretty clearly, but when it tries to look behind the car, it was fuzzy. When Rich took a closer look at it, the high part of the cover seemed a little sun burned. So he decided to take it off & reverse the cover.
The camera comes out and hangs from the hole for about 3' on the cord. He thought it was odd that there wasn't a way to disconnect the camera. Even when he stuck his arm into the hole, he couldn't feel anything. As he kept playing with it, more of the cord came out and exposed the connector. This was exciting because now he didn't have to stand on the ladder 8' off the ground taking out 12 screws so that he could reverse the cover. He untwisted the cord which was now hanging 5' out of the hole & carefully laid the camera assembly and 3' of cord in the box on the top of the ladder only to hear a 'kerplunk' when the other end of the cord dropped back down into the hole...into the abyss.
This isn't the first time this kind of stuff has happened to Rich but I won't bore you with the details about the master cylinder rebuild in the OU parking lot 40 years ago.
The out-of-reach camera cord won't be resolved until Rich can figure out a way to somehow get it out of this 4' cavity above the engine. So to verify that our tow car is still behind us, we catch a glimpse of it in the side mirrors as we turn, or we look for its shadow on the road.
We wanted to get an early start on today's drive since we're not sure how the awning will do. So after double checking the awning, we pulled out of the KOA a little after 9. After about 2 hours into the drive, I noticed that the joint in the front awning arm had moved, so Rich found a place to pull over to take a look. The duct tape was gone, but the wire ties were still secure, so he added more wire ties and we kept going.
When we were east of Rapid City, S.D., we couldn't help but notice signs for Wall Drugs about every 500'. "Free Ice Water at Wall Drugs" "Be Yourself at Wall Drugs". Sign after sign. Wall Drugs is a one-of-a-kind store founded in 1931. After about 20 miles and 200 Wall Drug signs, we stopped. Rich had been there once before in the 80's, this was a first for me. Truly was a unique store that had everything a passing thru tourist could want. We bought a Wall Drug magnet and hit the road again.
The rest of the drive was smooth...arrived at a woodsy, shady campground on the Missouri River in Chamberlain, South Dakota. They called it a long pull-thru that would fit our rig and tow car, but maybe they measure length differently in S.D. We had to unhook the car to even make the turn into the row where our site was. No way would the car have fit in the site still hitched to the RV.
Gorgeous setting along the river. Met a fellow camper trying to catch fish and discovered he went to Fresno State in the late 70's. Truly is a small world.
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