My first drone pix!

7:07 am - Tuesday - June 30th - Keystone, SD - 60° F, 83% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north.....feels closer to 10 mph....heavy overcast skies today with a forecast high of 70° F.....the view this morning......↴

Monday was the 3rd and final day of our three day heatwave here in Keystone, South Dakota, so we had no plans to do any touristy things....just stay home, and stay cool.  Whilst it was still the cool of the morning TLE got busy using her new Cowboy Disc Wok to cook breakfast......scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns.....did they ever come out tasty.....

 

.....I can see where this new outdoor kitchen appliance will result in more outdoor meals this summer....thanks to Claude Banker for introducing us to this new style of outdoor cooking!  Of course, after breakfast there was the requisite cleaning of the wok to keep it properly cured for future use.....

....on the drone front I have been practicing flying it every day, and have not crashed it once since the infamous pine tree incident.  I also finally figured out the camera system, and took my first pictures.....

......which is really the whole point of a drone, right?  You can see the Newell, and Beetle, as well as part of Rich and Marnie's yellow diesel Beetle in the upper right hand corner of the picture above.  Now that I'm getting the hang of this new contraption you'll see many more aerial shots from a much greater height......

....in the second picture you can see Mt. Rushmore in the background, and all of Rich and Marnie's VW Beetle.

On the reading front I finished another William J. Johnstone western entitled 'Riding Shotgun', which was very well written, and a real page turner, as 'they' say.  We turned on the A/C around 11 am......finally, and did not turn it off until 7 pm....it's been a long time since we've run the A/C three days in a row.....like last summer at RORVR.

Once again we had our early evening rain storm....no hail this time, but enough rain to give everything a good wash down once again.....in fact, with the daily rain the VW has never looked more clean, and to give it an extra touch Monday I took time to wipe off the rain from the hail storm Sunday night.  Fortunately, there is no apparent damage to anything from the golf ball size hail.  On a side note, if you go back to yesterday's blog, and 'right click' on the second hail picture, then choose 'open image in new tab' from the drop down menu you can then enlarge it and see how large that hail was.

Now that the heat has passed us by we hope to get out and do some more local exploring with Rich and Marnie Tuesday....stayed tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

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What the hail?

7:21 am - Monday - June 29th - Keystone, SD - 56° F, 87% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 89° F. 

Sunday was to be a warm day....not quite 90° F, but it felt much warmer.  By 11 am we had the A/C in the bedroom running to cool, and dry the interior air of the Newell.  Around that time TLE went outside 'cure' her new Cowboy Disc Wok by first filling the wok with water, then bringing it almost to a boil, and then letting it simmer for about 10 minutes.  Once that was done she poured off the water, and then using a cloth rubbed the steel cooking side of the wok down with salt for a period of time, then filled the wok with water once again, let it simmer for another 10 minutes.  The final step involved pouring off the water once again, then slicing some animal lard into the wok, let it heat up to where it begins to smoke, then add more lard, let it heat up again until it begins to smoke, the turn it off and let it cool down.  Once it had cooled down she wiped it clean, and it was pronounced 'cured'.  Monday morning she will cook breakfast in it for the first time.

While she was so engaged I decided we needed to put up our sun shade, and end piece as we get sun on the lido deck all day long as we are facing almost due east.  By the time it was in place, and staked down it was closing in on noontime, and I was hot, and sweaty....time for a nap in the cool confines of the Newell......

....around 4 pm I walked over to the convenience store to help out Rich and Marnie by stocking the cooler, 'fronting' all the floor merchandise, checked the restrooms for cleanliness, emptied the outdoor trashcans (5 in all) in front of the store, and next to each gas pump.  It being a Sunday the foot traffic was not to great, but it was steady until I headed home around 6 pm.....another 'grueling' day here in Keystone, SD.....lol.  My arrangement with the store manage, Beth, is that I will donate about 15 hours each week we are here in exchange for our full hookup site....seems reasonable to me, and especially nice that I spend 90% of my time inside the air conditioned store, and about half that inside the very cold cooler restocking beer, and other beverages.

As I exited the store around 6 pm I noticed it had clouded over, and the temp had dropped significantly as the pictures below illustrate......

....within 90 minutes we saw flashes of lightning, then heard thunder, and then rain upon our roof, which turned into golf ball size hail (maybe slightly smaller than that, but not by much) which startled us as it slammed into the roof of the Newell.  I was especially concerned with the plastic cover for our Fantastic Fan......I thought it would explode at any time letting water into the kitchen, but it held fast, and we remained dry.  It seemed to go on forever, but probably only lasted less than 10 minutes.  It appears we suffered no damaged to our solar panels, or to our VW.  In over 8 years of traveling this is the first significant hail we have experienced....thankfully......

 The hail

If you 'right click' on this image and choose 'open image in new tab' 

from the drop down menu you can then enlarge it and get a 

better idea of how big the hail was

.....the storm passed quickly, and within another hour it had stopped raining, and the skies began to clear.  Once we get by the current mini heatwave we'll get out and do some more exploring.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

It's not intuitive....AT ALL!

7:45 am - Sunday - June 28th - Keystone, SD - 73° F, 30% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the northwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 85° F.  On this day in 2016 we were at Incline Village sitting under a cabana on the shores of Lake Tahoe enjoying the day with our friends........↴

One of our favorite memories

.....we were in the middle of our third consecutive summer working at Tahoe Valley Campground.....little did we know that this would be the last full summer at TVC, and Lake Tahoe.

Our Jello plan was to drive back to Rapid City, SD to do some minor shopping, and for me to get a haircut.....my last haircut was in Durango, CO back on May 17th.....Rich and Marnie recommended we visit 'Great Clips' next to the Sam's Club in Rapid City.  Before that could happen, though I was determined to finally install a new pair of windshield wipers on the Newell.  

It's been 3, or 4 years since they were last replaced, and when we drove in the rain a couple of times recently I noticed they were 'skipping', and making a lot of noise.  I always carry one, or two spare pairs, so I retrieved one of them Saturday morning around 10 am and began the replacement.  I've changed the wipers several times over the 12+ years we have owned the Newell, but each time seems like the first time.  Why is this task not very intuitive?  I recently changed the wipers on the Beetle, which were two years old and doing the same thing the Newell wipers were doing.  It took me the better part of 30 minutes to figure out how to install the new Bosch wipers.  Each Newell wiper is attached to the swing arm by a single screw and nylock nut......a nylock nut looks like this, only in this case it is very small....

.......not remembering how I had done this task 4 years ago, I removed the screw and nylock nut, but soon, but not quickly, realized I did not have to remove the blade assembly from the swing arm, so after removing and replacing the old blade, I attempted to refasten the blade to the swing arm with the screw and nut......of course I dropped the very small nylock nut, and spent about 15 minutes looking for it in the gravel upon which the coach sits right now....no luck.  I thought, well, I've got hundreds of nuts, and was sure I could find a replacement.  I spent another 20 minutes trying to find a nut of any variety that would fit the existing screw, but could not.  Then I looked for another screw of the right size, but could not find one that fit the hole in the swing arm.  So, now I'm thinking I'm going to have to take the screw into Rapid City and find a new nylock nut at a local hardware store, thus stalling my efforts to finish the job.  By this time it was after 11:15 am, and I was still stuck on reattaching the first wiper....doh!  The Hockwald way strikes again!  I decided to try one more time to find the missing nylock nut.  I got a towel, folded it a couple of times, placed it on the gravel, and then knelt on the towel to search once again.....guess what, I my eyes almost immediately focused upon.....the nylock nut sitting right where it fell....thank you Jesus!  Once I found the missing nut, the rest of the job went quickly, and I finished installing the second wiper in just a few minutes.  Of course, you know, now that I have replaced the wipers it will not rain again while we are driving the Newell this summer.....you know I'm right.

After a quick shower we were off driving the 20 miles back to Rapid City arriving there just after 12 pm.  I checked in at the Great Clips desk, and was sitting in the chair getting a haircut (with face mask, as required) minutes later.  Our next stop was a local Walmart where TLE bought some lard which she will use to season our new Cowboy Disc Wok, and I acquired a micro memory card for the drone.  Next up was to find a place to have lunch.  Our initial choice, Hay Camp Brewing, turned out to only serve beer, no food....not going to drink beer on an empty stomach.  We had passed an interesting looking Mexican restaurant on the way to Hay Camp Brewing called 'Que Pasa' - Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Bar, so we headed back two blocks, found a parking spot in the very busy, and crowded downtown area about a block from the restaurant.....

 
.....Yelp only gives them 3.5 stars on 328 reviews, but we would be at a solid 4 stars....based on the reviews I read people either LOVE this place, or totally HATE it....yes, all caps HATE....crazy.  I initially judge any Mexican place by the quality of their chips and salsa.....Que Pasa's are great!  I ordered their Fish Tacos (picture above), and TLE their Quesadilla dish....we both loved our choices, and ended up taking home about 1/2 of the very generous proportions to be enjoyed again at a later date.

On the way back to the car we passed by this little water park where about 30 kids where enjoying splashing around in the water, and fountains......

.....we were home just before 3 pm.  While the high Saturday was around 87°, it felt hotter....thank goodness we left the A/C running whilst we were gone to Rapid City enabling us to return to a cool Newell interior.  I took nap, and read a while, then watched the Traveler's PGA event.

We didn't turn off the A/C until almost 8 pm when it finally dropped below 80° F.....we were in bed a little after 10 pm....another day in the books!

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I did all that!?

7:46 am - Saturday - June 27th - Keystone, SD - 60° F, 83% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal clear, blue, balmy skies today with a forecast high of 86° F.  The view this morning.......↴

When we are changing our view on a regular basis it is difficult to buy stuff online that we need/want in a short period of time because we have no mailing address other than General Delivery at a local USPS, and there is no longer a guaranty we will have the items in 1 to 2 days as had been the case prior to the WuFlu pandemic.  Once we knew we would be arriving in Keystone in about 10 days, and could have things mailed to the convenience store we began an ordering frenzy.  Five of the items we ordered arrived in Keystone several days prior to our arrival.  Two of those items were the Cowboy Disc Wok and a tripod stand/burner, which I wrote about here.  After picking up the boxes from Rich at the convenience store I proceed to assemble the wok stand/burner....the disc wok required no assembly.....lol.....

......with TLE's assistance I had the contraption assembled, and the wok sitting in its cradle in about 30 minutes.  Now we just have to get some animal lard to cure the wok, and it is ready to use.....

....the third item was some new 'exhaust wrap' for the diesel exhaust pipe in the drivers side engine bay....the original wrap had been damaged in a couple of spots, so I was able to cover that damaged area giving the existing wrap more insulating integrity once again.......the new exhaust wrap came with stainless steel zip ties to hold it in place.....perfect......

.....the fourth item in the box was a Holy Stone drone......it's a fairly priced entry level drone which costs less than $200....it has an HD camera, 'follow me', and 'return to home' features, plus two rechargeable batteries.  I have never owned, or operated a drone, so I actually read the manual before using it.  All that being said I still crashed it twice......

.....and for my finale of the day landed it about 45' up in a local pine tree.......

.....so, what to do?  My ladder is not long enough to reach that high, but I could use it to get to the lower branches, and then climb up to the top of this conifer and retrieve my new drone.  Sometimes I think I'm still 19, so that is what I did....for the first time in over 40 years I climbed a tree, retrieved the errant drone, and successfully returned to terra firma without harming any small animals, children, or my 70 year old body....just a couple drops of blood were shed.  Had TLE been home (she was doing laundry) she would have screamed 'NO!!!', and talked some sense into me, but as it turned out she returned just as I was carrying the ladder back to the Newell.  When I told her what I had just done she just shook her head and walked inside the Newell with the laundry.

The 5th item in the box was a roll of dark brown electrical tape....why brown, right?  Well, I have been noticing for some time that there is a bad wear spot on the leather steering wheel wrap from 170,000+ miles of use.  Short of replacing the steering wheel, or removing the old leather and recovering it I chose a middle course.....use the brown electrical tape to wrap the damaged areas, and try and make it look symetrical by wrapping the same area on the opposite side....I think it turned out quite well.....

.....wow, that was a busy first day in Keystone!  Time for a nap, and there was a nice, long, uninterrupted nap taken as a reward for all my hard work.  Around 5 pm we donned our Sunday best (shorts, t-shirts, flip flops and hats) and walked down to Cruizzers Pizza for dinner.....Yelp gives them a solid 4.5 stars and we would whole heartedly agree.....all fresh ingredients, and very thin crust....just like we like it. We ordered the 'Cadillac' which features Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, Peppers, Onion, Mushrooms, & Black Olives.....we ordered the 10" option and it was the perfect size....

Picture of the Cadillac courtesy of Yelp

....we chased it with a couple of Voodoo Ranger IPA's, which was the perfect pairing.  While we were eating we got a text message from Marnie asking if we wanted to go for a walk, to which we replied 'YES!'.  About 30 minutes after we arrived back at the Newell we were walking up to Mountain View Cemetery.  It's about 1 mile each way, and was the perfect way to end our very busy first day in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore......

t

 ....the gang is together once again!  This is what I love about the vagabonder lifestyle....meeting up with good friends in random places around the country!  

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!

What's the Rush?

7:26 am - Friday - June 26th - Keystone, SD - 60° F, 72% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the north.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 74° F....possible thunder showers later today.

As I related in the opening paragraph of yesterday's missive we experienced quite an electrical storm early Thursday morning replete with a lot of thunder, high winds, and rain.  I say that to say this......neither of us slept well after 2 am when we had to go outside to stow our awnings, so when our 6 am wake up call came we both could have used a couple more hours sleep, but we wanted to hike the Tower Trail around Devil's Tower before we hauled anchor, and we wanted to do that before it got too warm, so we got up, and by 8 am were ready to make the 5 mile drive with Claude and Gail to the closed Visitors Center (all the visitors centers at National and State Parks are still closed) where the Tower Trail begins.

By 8:20 am we were at the trailhead beginning the 1.8 mile circumnavigation of Devil's Tower.....

There is a lot of construction happening at the Visitors Center

.....as the above plaque states, Devils Tower was, and is the first National Monument.  As you hike the asphalt paved trail around the base of the tower you are able to appreciate the different views with different lighting.....

.....the symmetrical columns of Devils Tower come in 4,5,6 and 7 sided versions, and are the tallest such symmetrical volcanic columns found the the world at some 600' in length of which the 6 sided versions are the most prolific. I'll let the rest of the pictures tell the story......

 One of the plentiful 6 sided columns fallen from grace

....the hike took us around 50 minutes with plenty of stops for the obligatory photo ops.  We were back to the coach by 9:40 am, and rolling our wheels by 10 am on the dot.....I love it when a plan comes together.  So, after our ever so brief 22 hour stay at Devils Tower View Campground we were back on the road again........our total driving distance to our destination for the day, Keystone, SD, was 125 miles with a planned stop at the 65 mile mark at the Walmart in Spearfish, SD.....

Not far to Spearfish now

....at the Walmart we bought a few provisions for our two week stay at Keystone, and I was hoping to get a much needed haircut, but the salon was closed Thursday for training purposes.....doh!

By 12:00 pm we were back on I-90 heading for Rapid City and US-16 which would take us southward to Keystone, SD.  We arrived just after 1:30 pm just as it was beginning to rain.  Rich (Of Rich and Marnie fame....they were our managers at RORVR, if you will recall) met us at the employee RV section to help us get into site #3 which will be our home for the two weeks we are there.  A bonus to our location is that we can see the Mt. Rushmore sculptures from our home......

.....to get our site for free I am trading two weeks of volunteer work at a local business....about 15 hours per week, and we will have the rest of the time to wander, and explore the area, including checking out some possible boondock areas for afterwards.....how cool is that?

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which over the course of a year adds up to enough to by a tank of diesel for which we thank you very much!