Days on the road

We traveled to our home town of Wilmington (OH) Monday late afternoon, and stayed through Wednesday morning.  Visited with Connie's dad (forgot to take pictures!!!) and also stopped by an old friend from HS that opened a new shop, the Wooden Moose.

Wednesday and Thursday were total travel days. 

Wednesday, we boondocked in a WalMart parking lot in Normal, IL  There was a Pizza Hut across the street for dinner, and (bonus) a bakery inside the WM for fresh donuts!

Thursday, we boondocked at the Isle Casino in Waterloo, IA.  They had a nice restaurant (one of four), The Brew Brothers, inside that had local craft beers, and some pub grub. 

I had some loaded fries (pulled pork, BBQ and cheese sauce) that were fantastic.  Couldn't finish it, but they were so good.  Not sure why else people go to casinos if not for the food and drinks?



Friday we rolled into Sioux Falls, SD and the Sioux Falls KOA.  Had an appointment at 5p to renew our driver's license that we just barely made due to some construction.  Our Google GPS taking us to a closed exit (thinking it was open) then having to follow a detour back to an open exit (that was what Google thought was closed).  Let me tell you, we zipped in and out of the DMV in 32 minutes.  They were the nicest DMV workers I've ever encountered.  What a pleasant experience.

After the licenses, we went downtown to a "First Friday" event put on by Downtown Sioux Falls and met our new BDM (business development manager) for Sandals (Adults Only All Inclusive Resorts) and Beaches (Caribbean All inclusive resorts for families), Monica Huether.  Great weather and company.  Talked a lot about our business, our backgrounds, ways Sandals and Beaches is growing and thoughts for expanding our niches.

Really enjoyed the small town feel of the event.  Also got introduced to Monica's friend, Julio Espino.  Great story.  Came to Sioux Falls as an engineer, noticed there wasn't an authentic Mexican restaurant in town, so he started it.  The restaurant did well, but people started wanting his salsa.  So, he started marketing his Inca salsa and sold the restaurant to his sister.  He's getting outlets at Hy-Vee, Wal Marts and working on expanding elsewhere (including H-E-B in Texas).  Fascinating conversation on the ins and outs of his business.  Was nice enough to give us some samples, looking forward to trying them.

Need a day of rest, and what better way than to watch College Football.  Weather is supposed to get crappy, so that will make it even easier to hang in the rig.

What a Saturday in Big D!

First, the bad news -- Buckeyes lose to Purdue by having an extra point blocked.  <sigh>.

Plenty of good news, though.  Dropped Sloopy off in the morning at the Richter Animal Hospital to be boarded for the weekend.  Carmen was there a day earlier to be spayed and they'll spend the rest of the weekend there.  When people talk about how pets "tie them down", we don't get it.  If you have somewhere to go, there are plenty of great boarding places wherever you are.  We once boarded Sloopy for 14 days in Tucson while we cruised to Hawai'i.

We travelled to the other side of Dallas to the Texas State Fairgrounds.  Saw the Cotton Bowl, and my she's showing her age.  Still want to do the Texas State Fair someday.

Our purpose for our visit, though, was to see the Zac Brown Band perform at the GEXA Pavillion.  We arrived around 3:30p local time and after our walk to the Cotton Bowl, back to the truck to tailgate, only we were pretty lonely.  We walked to the other side and saw that the partying had started on the other side, but our parking location was going to be so good, we decided not to leave -- a good decision.

Been awhile since we'd traditional tailgated, including charcoal.  Had bought a little portable guy at WalMart for $5 and it included a package of charcoal, which was terrible and wouldn't light.  So we through the bag of Match Light on there, and we suddenly had enough charcoal to cook a turkey.  Plenty for our couple of hamburgers.

The GEXA Pavillion is a nice venue, with a large lawn seating -- our preference.  Can't estimate the crowd, but it was pretty full and Zac Brown said it was the largest sale they had had on this tour, so let's just say 'big'.

Concert itself was a great value -- two opening acts took us to an hour and a half, and ZBB played another two and a half with a special appearance by Randy Travis.
Traffic getting out was as you would expect from an older venue, lots of one lanes, lots of cutting into traffic.

Today, we're on the road to Galveston (about 5 hours from the Dallas Arlington KOA) for the inaugural event of the Carnival Magic.  Will have plenty about it for the ride back!

Tear Down Day

Today is the day before "Get Away Day" which is "Tear Down Day".   Each place we go, we like to have a familiarity of our setup -- two tables outside, solar ground lights, X pen for the dog, raft under the rig, etc.  Just makes us feel more at home.

Whereas we used to tear down the morning of Get Away Day,  now we seem to do things a bit more leisurely.  Of course, another record breaking heat day slowed us a bit, also.

Biggest thing is getting the scooter in the truck, which starts the whole process of loading.  Not sure if everyone has a packing list, but I need one for the order of everything that goes into the truck (to give us that Beverly Hillbillies look as we travel) and to make sure I don't forget anything.

We've never been one to be all hooked up and roll out of the park at the crack of dawn.  Our traditional time to be on the road is 10 a.m. We'll do breakfast, finish packing inside and out, take our showers when we're finished and dump the sewage last thing before we pull out.  Just makes us feel good on the road.

Will be blogging from the road the next two days.  Staying at the Springfield (MO) Elks tomorrow night, a Wal Mart to be determined, then pull into the Indianapolis KOA on Sunday.

Drinking Water

One of the first things we learned RV'ing is that the water in campgrounds can be horrible.  Some are just awful.
We use a filter for the water coming into the rig, but that filter is more to protect the hot water heater and the pipes.  We'll cook with that water, but that's about it.
During our summers out, we would use those 5 gallon Primo water recyclable water jugs with a dispenser.  But, at $6.99/5 gallons, it's hardly a bargain.
Now that we full time, we use two 6 gallon containers that we mule to one of those water filtration places you see outside the convenience store (Glacier is a popular one) and some RV parks have one set up.  At 30¢/gallon (sometimes 5 gallons for $1) it's a ton more economical than anything else, albeit not nearly the purity but much more consistent.  We still keep our Primo 5 gallon bottle, and they do wear out after a while, but it's $7 for one at WalMart empty, we just exchange it after a bit.