Arrival Monday, June 22
345 Miles | 6.5 hours plus 20-minute detour
The check engine light has stayed on for two days now which is a little unnerving and the curbside tire has us a little nervous as well so we travel straight to Rapid City which is the nearest city big enough to have repair services. Mari calls a few places in the way there and locates Rapid Tire and Alignment who are proficient in working on large vehicles including trailers and, more importantly, they can squeeze us in that day.
The same is true for Belly Brothers Auto Repair who spend a few minutes reading the check engine code and determine there’s probably something going on with the third cylinder, but since we aren’t seeing a loss in power they reset the check engine light and suggest we drive it around a bit to see if the light comes back on.
After finding a nice outdoor exercise circuit to get in our workout with Sunita we cruise back over to check in on the alignment and, almost as an afterthought decide to, per their suggestion, switch from the old 15-ply nylon trailer tires to radials which he can get us for a very reasonable $180 each.
This is a game changer once we get the Gypsy back on the road; her ride becomes much more plush. Gone are the days of jolting items out of the cabinets and the refrigerator door jarring loose spilling dinner all over the floor, pre-mixing our salad for us. We hit the trail headed toward our next destination with a much smoother ride, creeping the speed confidently back over 60, even up to 65 with no issues.
Except that no sooner do we leave town than the check engine light pops back on—It’s always something it seems. We follow our usual guidance provided by a mix of Google and Apple maps, interspersed with RV road tips from RV Life. We begin a drive into a reservation but get pulled over and asked to turn around at a Covid Checkpoint by the Sioux Nation who have taken a stand against the governor of South Dakota, deciding to not let anyone from out of state cross tribal lands, according to national news.
It seems we keep showing up at places that are in the national news. We backtrack about 20 miles and change our destination on the fly from Gettysburg to Bismarck. We pull into Abraham Lincoln State park well after dark, with Google maps for some unknown reason taking us across a several miles of dirt roads only to dump us back onto pavement which we could have directly accessed had we taken one exit closer to tbe park’s entrance.
After taking a couple loops to scope out the available spaces Mari gets us registered online and we pull in for the night, curious to see what tbe place looks like in the morning.
We wake up to a beautiful park under a tall canopy of trees by the river, and pretty much everyone else we meet camping there is a local. We meet a young family Andrew, an Opthamologist, and his wife an occupational therapist with young little girls and a vintage 1963 27-foot airstream which they have single handedly restored from the ground up.
They’re a little shaken up because their tow vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser, was totaled the day before when a white-tail deer jumped out on the road at 1:30 in the afternoon. Oddly enough, they don’t stay in the airstream either night we are there, and on night 2 they have grandma pick up the girls while they go off somewhere else to celebrate their 8th anniversary.
Sibri is bummed to lose her new friends but we go on a hike to the nearby fort while Mari works, followed by a 2-hour kayak excursion through the sandbars of the Missouri River, which helps keep her engaged and happy until sunset.
That night Sibri lobbies hard for us to relocate an miniature vintage trailer which Andrew had brought over to become Bella's cat bed for the night. We finagle it into our already cramped 22' abode. Mari is justifiably skeptical but we somehow shoehorn it into the center of our walkway, stepping over and around it for the rest of the night every time someone has to go to the bathroom, or outside, or pretty much anywhere.
The next morning, working off a tip from the kayak guy Datta goes for a solo single track ride at nearby Harmon Lake which recently hosted a nationally sanctioned race. There were still some trail signs up from the event. The main track is a beautiful 8-mile loop, with several back trails featuring names such as "Chutes and Ladders" and "Epic." It's a 4.1 mi loop that promises even more fun if there’s aver an opportunity to come back.
On the way out of town we discover premium diesel and incredibly the check engine light goes back off almost immediately after giving the Audi a fresh tank. We hit the road smiling even bigger. Why don’t they have this stuff back in Cali?
Departure Wednesday, June 24
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