Month: July 2022

We hit 222,222 miles on the FJ. And it's running great still. I ran into an FJ fan at a Costco gas station recently and he couldn't stop talking about how Toyota makes a 1,000,000 mile engine. Well I guess we're going to find out. 😁 It was …

I had a 1979 Scout and it was great. Funny that it's such a classic car now but of course none of us knew it back then. It was the first to market for what we now refer to as SUVs. It was followed by the Chevy Blazer and the Ford Bronco wit…

In the middle of South Dakota along I-90 is a place called 1880 town. It is a fun breaking point along the long windy drive across the state. We decided to check it out! There is a large indoor area with lots of props from Dances With Wolve…

It was a cold and windy summer day in South Dakota and we decided to drive around Badlands National Park. The boondocking area in Badlands is really amazing! You pull up to the edge and that is your spot! You can spot two RVs on the left: Y…

The grounds at the capitol building in Pierre, South Dakota are beautiful! There is a large pond with a walking path around it and a few different garden areas. This was a water feature at the Veteran…

We decided to take a road trip to Pierre to see the capitol building. Our GPS told us to take some paved two lane roads but I was looking at the map and decided a dirt road would be much more fun! We drove through miles and miles of farmlan…

Isn't that the craziest set of clouds and a rainbow? I'm so glad I had my phone while we were walking James so I could take this photo! While in Belvidere, South Dakota, we saw rainbows every night. And usually they were double rainbows! It…

It is another beautiful summer day in the Black Hills of South Dakota so we are driving the Custer Wildlife Loop! Time to get back in the car - we see buffaloes! We found a lot of buffaloes in Custer during this drive around the Custer Wild…

I really enjoy swimming and soaking in natural springs - especially when they are hot! I saw there was a mineral spa in South Dakota called Moccasin Springs. It is in the town of Hot Springs so we decided to go and check it out! This is the…

It's amazing what you can order online now. I guess I always thought you needed to go into a tire shop and just take what they had in stock when you needed new tires. But not anymore, and it was a great experience! Let me walk you through i…

We love Custer State Park - the mountains, the forests, the lakes, the scenic drives and the wildlife! Custer has one of the world's largest publicly owned bison herds (bison/buffalo - I tend to call …

There are two scenic roads in the Black Hills of South Dakota that are so much fun to drive! Iron Mountain Road is close to Mount Rushmore and Needles Highway is close to Custer State Park. Both roads are actually connected and there are lo…

When we were in South Dakota a few years ago we wanted to tour Wind Cave National Park but we ran out of time. We decided to make it a priority this time! Before our tour, we wandered around the exhib…

I don't know about you, but when I hear people talking about electric vehicles I hear a lot about torque. Knowing that a diesel also has a lot of torque and really great gas mileage while towing, that makes an electric vehicle seem like a g…

In addition to architecture at capitol buildings and universities, I also enjoy the architecture of places of worship. In Rapid City there is a little chapel called the Chapel in the Hills. The "hills" refer to the Black Hills of South Dako…

We got up at sunrise one morning to hike around Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park. Custer is one of our favorite places in South Dakota! It is an easy hike around the lake and it is dog friendly. We brought James with us but we decided it mi…

When I told my friend Shauna that we had an RV, she asked, "Have you seen The Long, Long Trailer movie?" I hadn't seen it so I checked it out from the library. The Long, Long Trailer is a comedy featuring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and it …

South Dakota has some crazy hail storms. We've seen some cars in SD that are just peppered with hail damage and it is really sad to see. Usually just the top and one side of the vehicle are completely damaged. If you didn't know about the h…

South Dakota has some serious summer storms! The wind here is intense and can last for days. And the summer thunderstorms have just as much lightning as a Florida summer storm - possibly even more. This was the radar on the evening of June …

Greetings from The Mount Rushmore State - South Dakota! We hope you have a wonderful Independence Day! The Mount Rushmore Memorial grounds are huge and there are lots of hikes you can do once you park…

We fell in love with the Angostura Reservoir back in 2018. It is in a remote area of southwest South Dakota just south of Hot Springs, South Dakota. There are several state-run campgrounds along the l…