Black Hills, South Dakota

We drove up the high plains to reach Custer, Wyoming. There, we picked up groceries before driving the last few miles to our campground.

We didn't see this until the next day. As you may have noticed, the first photo is the one that's shown on the blog or on Facebook. :)

We did see the Crazy Horse monument, although only from the highway.

We went to Palmer Gulch campground and had a nice evening. We had cheese brats on the grill.

There was a bit of a hill down to the pool and horses. Later, we found out we could have rented a golf cart.

It had a great view across the valley.

Probably 100 head of horses for trail rides.

Thursday we headed out to do the loop. 

We would have/should have left the boat in the campground and taken one of the rental cars they offered. That is, if we knew then what we know now. 

On the other hand, it would have just happened later.  As it turns out, the way it worked out wasn't all bad. 

We had planned to take Friday as a down day after our tour of Mt Rushmore and Custer State Park on Thursday. It turned out our home needed the down day more than we did.

It started out great. It was forecast to be a hot one so we got an early start in the cool of the morning. We were rewarded with a senior discount and a close parking spot.

There are so many great ways to take their photo.

Or have your photo taken with them.

It is awe inspiring. It was interesting to see the museum and relearn how it was sculpted.

We had to leave the wiener in the boat. We left the generator running the air conditioner, so they were both comfy.

Never gets old

At this point we are climbing up a very scary road with awesome views back to Mt. Rushmore. It was scary steep and scary tunnels that took our breath away. These were tunnels we technically and successfully fit through, but OMG!

My concerns about the cooling capabilities of the RV proved well founded. We had to stop and let the temp come down several times.  

The engine started to sound louder and louder as it climbed the hills. It also started to backfire a bit. Not good!

We tried to ignore the growing noise coming out of the engine compartment. 

This herd of Buffalo did the trick for a while. 

BTW the throaty growl only came from the RV under power. We weren't scaring the buffalo when idling.

Babs got better shots. Someday she'll post some of them. Right Babs?

We made it back to the campground but by then it sounded like we were a muscle RV.  It might sound cool, but you lose a lot of power when you're not muffled.  We were crawling up the hills.

After the engine cooled the cause of our problem was obvious. The clamp that holds the muffler to the manifold had come loose and was dangling like a bracelet on the pipe arm.

Hmmm, Charlie changed the manifolds at the last minute. Perhaps he could have done a better job securing the bolts. Oh well, I guess after 7k miles we just have to say these things happen on an RV.

There was no cell phone or wifi connection available at Palmer Gulch so we headed to Hill City to find someone to help us get things put back together.

One thing led to another and we were off to Rapid City about 25 miles away for a 2:30pm appointment at Black Hills Truck Repair. 

We got there about 10:30am and they already had it on its jacks by 11:00. They would have it back to us quickly, they just needed the replacement gasket that I had lost. 

After two wrong parts were delivered, the dealer sent the right one and we were on our way by 4:30.

During the day we were able to cancel our spot at Palmer Gulch and move down to a campground in Rapid City, very close to where the RV was being repaired. 

We thought the adventures for the day were over, but not quite.

It was beautiful and sunny when we set up camp. The pool was full of swimmers and sun bathers when we got here at 5. However, it was not looking good by 6pm.

More hail storms north and south of us. We heard some hail hit the roof but nothing damaging.

We got some high wind gusts and even sustained winds which were tougher on the tenters than us. Still, we were battened down and were rocking in the wind. 

I couldn't believe we were going to fix our muffler just in time to have the whole RV tipped over by a wind burst.

It's supposed to go on all night but the worst seems to be over for now. 

Stay tuned...