Travel Blog

I have a sick husband and a sick dog at home, so no pictures still. Please forgive me, mom.

We spent our one day off yesterday traveling for 14 hours to Sioux Falls and back to pay our state taxes on the new RV. I knew we should have been paying more attention to the fact that our temporary tags were expiring soon (tomorrow), but it just slipped my mind. All my past purchases have involved the dealership taking all my money and then I get my tags and plates in the mail. You know, the civilized way of doing business. Well, this RV dealership waits until two days before taxes are due and mails YOU the paperwork and tells you to get to your county treasurer before the 30 days are up. But at least they were nice enough to send us a check in the amount we had already paid them for the taxes...made out to Custer County Treasurer. Too bad our permanent residence is not in Custer County. We live in Sioux Falls, which is Minnehaha County.

So we called our loving and lovely mail forwarding service, who helps RVers deal with this sort of mess, and they verified our supspicions that Minnehaha would not take kindly to us paying Custer County instead of them, and they informed us that penalties would start accruing if we went past the 30-day timeline. So Phil and I decided to just pony up the $600.00 bucks ourselves and drive to Sioux Falls and get it all taken care of in person. We did call the RV place to inform them of their mistake, and to ask them to PLEASE write out a check made out to us because we were going to pay Minnehaha out of our own humble checkig account, and we would come on Friday to pick up the check and get it back into our bank account so we wouldn't be skint for a week until payday.

The trip to Sioux Falls wasn't bad. We got to drive past the Badlands and the famous Wall Drug and a lot of other cool-looking places that we'll go back to on subsequent day offs (days off?). We couldn't stop yesterday, however, because our poor little pug, Willoughby, had diarrhea. Do you know how fun it is to take a car trip with a dog with diarrhea? After the first fecal explosion that happened while we were inside a convenience store getting coffee, at least we knew that once she starting to pant, we had better pull over for the next eruption. We must have timed it wrong on the way home, though, because before I could pull over (we were about 50 miles from home), she exploded all over Phil. And since his overshirt had already been hit in the first incident at the convenience store (it had been lying on the seat), Phil made the last leg of the trip shirtless.

But we got to Sioux Falls and found the treasurer's office ok, and I stayed in the car with the dogs and the air conditioning while Phil went inside to pay. And it was a good thing we were there in person because the tax man said the RV dealership did the paperwork incorrectly, and actually even overcharged us on the taxes, so we ended up saving some money, which was good because we spent 100 bucks in gas to get there. And the tax guy said the dealership was going to be getting an interesting letter from him because of all the mistakes.

So that was our day off. Phil had the added discomfort of becoming ill yesterday. We're not sure what's wrong, but we think it's acid indigestion. With the stress and all the coffee and everything, we are hoping that's what it is. If he isn't feeling better by Tuesday (thank you, Memorial Day weekend), he's heading to the clinic.

So poor Phil had to get up early and head with me to Whitewood to the RV dealership so they could reimburse us for the taxes we paid out of pocket. We get there, and I tell Phil to stay in the car and I would take care of it, and I go in, give them their incorrect check and receive a new check...made out to Minnehaha Treasurer. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I told the lady we had spent the whole day yesterday paying our taxes, and Phil had asked her to make the check out to us instead of the treasurer's office, but she insisted that he told her to make the check out to Minnehaha. If I can backtrack a bit, she never said she was sorry for her mistake with the first check. In fact, she didn't even say hi to me or smile or anything. She was on the defensive from the minute I walked in. She was a real bitch to me, actually. She said she guessed she could write out another check made out to us, but no one would be around to sign it, so...At that point I lost it and asked to speak to anyone in charge, but no one apparently was in charge there. So Phil came in and confronted the woman, who was already complaining about us to one of her coworkers, and the woman decided that it was time for her to take her break, got her purse and left the building. So we spoke with our salesperson, and told him our story, and also told him we thought he was great, and up to then, our experience had been fine, but that the woman really ruined our day. And we left, kind of miffed. But our sales guy called us right away, and said he would make sure we get our check very soon, and yadda yadda yadda. We thanked him, and reitterated that he was great, but that woman should be sent to customer service school. No wonder Phil has acid indigestion, huh?

I don't think my friend, Dave, warned me about the possibility of tornadoes in South Dakota. Thanks a lot, pal. Today we experienced some driving rain, severe thunderstorms, lightning, thunder and hail. And the hail was big enough to dent some cars (not ours) and damage some RVs (yep, ours). We lost a couple of skylights, but two out of four ain't bad, right? And it could be worse. There were nine reported tornadoes in South Dakota today, and none of them were here, so that's something. Of course, the day isn't over yet. Besides the weather, things are going ok. We're both making enemies because...wait for it...we work too hard. Don't even try to understand that. And the first two people we met here are pulling out of here and heading for the Badlands tomorrow. They liked the job ok, but some of the folks around here weren't all that friendly to them, and they got a better-paying gig there, so they're leaving tomorrow morning. We'll be sorry to see them go. We had a heck of a lot of fun in the warehouse. Oh well. This too shall pass, and our house is on wheels if things get too bad. But it's not all doom and gloom. We had some friends from Spring Training stay in the park last week, and we got to have a fun breakfast with them before they had to head to Spearfish, SD, to start work. We'll have to go visit them before the summer's out. And hopefully more family and friends will come and spend some time with us, so it's all good. More pictures coming soon...

No pictures in today's post, folks, but don't blame me...blame the bison. When I got home from work at around 7:00 tonight, there was a huge herd of elk right by the homestead, and I was going to run inside and get the camera to take some picures for you, but two big, old bulls were standing by my driveway. I actually pulled into my driveway and ended up about eye to eye with one of them. Needless to say, I was stuck in the truck for a bit. So by the time they left and I took the dogs "O," (that's outside for you non-dog people) it was dark and the elk were gone. Oh well. Next time.

Well, if snow on May 6th was bad, how about some snow on May 12th?

Now, how would you like to be the folks who were set to have an outdoor wedding here on the 15th?

But, by the next afternoon, it looked like this:

So the wedding didn't get snowed on...it got rained out. Oh well. They still had a good time.

Anyway, I finally, finally got to see my little donkeys. But before we get to them, we had a good day off on Thursday. We said we were going to stay in the park so we didn't spend any more money on the house, but we ended up in Custer and spent a whole bunch of money anyway. First thing, we got gas, and now that diesel is back to well over $3 a gallon, there went a hundred bucks. But I took a picture at the gas pumps to take my mind off it.

Looks like a cute little place, and since my middle name is Ruth, well, what can I say? We were hungry, but we didn't eat at Ruthie's. We had heard of a place called Baker's  Bakery so we thought it would be nice to pay homage to my maiden name and eat there. As soon as you walk in the door, you are greeted by dinner-plate-sized cinnamon rolls! We surely did like that place.

After we ate and spent some more money at the Ace Hardware, we decided to take a drive up to Sylvan Lake because Phil hadn't been up there yet. I had been up there in the company van just the week before, and I thought it was quite lovely. We'll have to go back in the warm weather and go canoeing or something. Here's the lodge there (I didn't take a picture of the lake...next time.)

When we left Sylvan, we swung by Blue Bell because we were on the way to the Wildlife Loop to find my burros. We stopped in the store at Blue Bell and chatted with a nice guy named Dave.

Blue Bell is where we can go horseback riding for FREE! We just have to call on one of our day's off and see if they have room for us on one of their excursions. That should be fun. This is where the chuckwagon cookouts are too. And this is where I send all the cowboy-oriented merchandise from the warehouse.

Then it was on to the Wildlife Loop. We hadn't gone very far at all, and we ran into some bison. I didn't care about them. There weren't even any babies with these ones to take pictures of. Ho hum. But we rounded a corner, and Phil said, "There they are!" But they were way far away in a field, and we didn't have a good place to pull off, but Phil pulled off to the side as best as we could, and said, "They will come."

And they sure did.

And they got some Corn Pops.

And they liked them.

When we ran out of Pops, we left the burros and ran, almost literally, into more bison. We caught this fellow scratching himself on the guardrail.

Look at all that dust he's kicking up (or shaking off himself).

And then it was back to the homestead. But before we got there, we saw this guy high-tailing it as fast as he could possibly run. We're not sure what he was running from, but he was bookin'.

That's about it for the Payne adventures of late. We're working hard, and Phil is proving himself to be indispensible, as per usual. I think it's time to ask for that raise.

I think I may have gotten the greatest picture ever.

That should be the cover of the State Game Lodge brochure, don't you think. I wish the bison was a bit less mangy, but it's still a good shot. A second later he moved and his head was blocking the sign.

And I know you're probably sick of all the deer pictures already, but they are everywhere, and I think they're cute.

I'm getting the strongest sense of deja vu, like I already posted these pictures. I hope not. I'm just going to keep on going. Farther down the road, I ran into these critters.

And then there were the turkeys. I sat and watched these guys for awhile.

And then I gobbled at them.

He didn't take kindly to that, and he finally gave me a look that made me stop teasing him.

And that's all the wildlife I have for now. I still have not seen the Begging Burros, but this Thursday I will make it my mission.

I will leave you with this image; one that I hoped never to see again after our stint in Yellowstone. We woke up to the following on May 6th.

It's gone now, but I'm still holding a grudge against Mother Nature.

I'm an idiot. I was all set to sit in the lobby for a couple of hours with the computer and camera and download, resize and post all these great pictures I took the other day, but I got all unpacked and realized I didn't have the USB cord to get the pics off the camera. Sorry about that. You all know by now that my promises don't mean all that much, but I promise a new picture blog on Saturday night.

Not much is going on with us. I don't think I like this 6-day workweek, but the work isn't hard so I shouldn't complain too much. I'm actually a bit homesick for Skagway, though, and that's making things tough on me.

Phil and I spent our day off yesterday buying things for the new RV (thanks for the b-day check, mommy), but next Thursday we said we're not going to leave the Park, so we'll be out and about with the camera, and we'll be passing it along to you.

Just one work-related story, and then I'm going to go. I have infamously bad sense of direction. It's so bad that I'm already the joke around here because I was driving some coworkers into Rapid City to cash their paychecks, and I turned the wrong way going out of our employee housing area. So today, our warehouse delivery guy had the day off, and my boss was feeling under the weather, so she asked if I could deliver some goods to the five stores spread out all over the Park. Ha! Someone trusts me. And I only got lost once.

Ok, my mom already yelled at me for not posting in awhile, so you all don't have to. But in  my defense, it's been a hectic week. We work six days, and then on our one day off we had to go get our new house. All went fairly smoothly and we were done with paperwork and the moving from one RV to the other in about five hours. So we're all in, and the place is a pigsty, so it may be a little while longer until I get to write an interesting blog, but stay tuned, there's more Custer State Park goodness to share (once I find my camera and all my power cords).