Saturday, September 27, 2014

Onward to Missouri, Iowa and South Dakota!

Since my last post, we have just about run out of data on out hotspot, so I have to conserve the hotspot and had to wait until I could find some free WiFi to upload another post! So, we left Eureka Springs, Arkansas on September 22nd and moved to Peculiar Park Place RV Park in Peculiar, Missouri. Peculiar got its name in a peculiar way! Click here: Peculiar
The park is near the interstate which, of course, is good and bad. However, since we were still using air conditioning, the interstate noise did not bother us.


The park is nice, well maintained, had good water, electric, sewer and fair WiFi. We didn't do much in Peculiar, mostly because our mission has now shifted to one of business. It's all about getting to South Dakota, becoming residents and getting out of there before the snow starts falling! Since we arrived on a Thursday and our rules do not permit traveling on weekends, we stayed until Monday. We did a little sight seeing, but not much. The highlights of the visit was that Dodie and Maggie got their hair cut, in different places, of course! :)

 When we left Peculiar, we moved north to Pacific Junction, IA. The town was actually established and named by the railroad. Most of Iowa seemed to be corn fields. For that matter, most of Iowa, Missouri and South Dakota seems to be cornfields! We've never seen so much corn! The campground is named i29 hwy 34 campground. It's kinda like naming a cat, Cat! The campground is near high 34 just off of interstate 29! Anyway, it was a farmers move into a sideline business. When he is not running a campground, he and his brother run a 2000 acre farm. I believe he (Joe) said that he started it 10 years ago. At first, business was slow and locals laughed at Joe. The construction started in the area and he quickly filled up with construction workers. Soon, he had to expand. We were in a site by ourselves that he reserves for over-nighters.



There was good water, sewer, electric and good WiFi. Everyone was real friendly. I wouldn't mind staying here again.

We left Iowa on the 24th of September and arrived in Salem, South Dakota. We are in a beautiful little park called Camp America Campground. The grounds are meticulously maintained and there is a lot of grassy areas between campers.

They have good electric, water and sewer. The first two days, the WiFi was awful and I was using our hot spot and carefully monitoring usage! However, last night they got the WiFi fixed. It is not as good as farmer Joe's, but it is acceptable. Thursday, we went into Madison which is about 35 miles from here. It seems that everything is about 35 miles from here or more! There is just endless farms between towns. So, we met Terri at the mail service. She has been handling our mail for the last month and a half. She fixed us up with the paperwork we needed for registering our truck and getting our drivers licenses. The only thing is, we can't do it all in Madison. The drivers licenses are not done in Madison on Thursdays or Fridays, so we need to go to Mitchell (about 60 miles away) for that! So, we got the tags for the truck and went back to the campground and dropped off Maggie. Then on to Mitchell for drivers licenses. We were armed with many years worth of documents and the paperwork from Terri and it all went smoothly. We were now residents of South Dakota with drivers licenses to prove it! Only problem...waiting for paper to get the camper registered. It should be here on Monday.
One little problem we encountered when we got here was with the satellite set up. Until we crossed some imaginary line somewhere heading north, we were able to get our local Dish programming with major network feeds from satellites in the southeastern arc. Now, we must get our signals from the satellites in the western arc. However, that requires a western arc LNB ( in simple terms, it's a part for the antenna) for the satellite dish. I didn't have one. After a few phone calls, I located a Dish retailer that would be in Madison while we were who could sell me a western arc LNB. So, after lunch on Thursday, I met him and traded him $50.00 for an LNB. Later that afternoon, we were receiving all of our programming and local channels were from Sioux Falls, SD.
Friday, we went grocery shopping and took care of laundry and other chores around the camper.
Today, we did some sight seeing. We went back to Mitchell and saw the Corn Palace.

The Corn Palace was interesting. Check this link I took a lot of pics and I'll have a link to them. There are mosaics outside and inside the corn palace and they are all made of corn.
 
 See how the mosaics are kinda like a paint by number picture only it's corn by color! LOL! 

After the Corn Palace, we went to lunch. We weren't sure about local eateries, so we just cruised down Main Street. At the end of Main Street there is the Depot Pub and Grill. Click here to see the Depot
When we decided to stop here for lunch, we didn't realize it was an historic site. Pretty cool! And...they had Buffalo on the menu! So I had my first ever Buffalo Burger! 

After lunch, we decided to go back to the camper because Maggie had been alone for about 4 hours. While there had only been 4 RV's here, we found some more had checked in. I believe we are up to 7 RV's and there's one young couple in a tent.
Tomorrow, we'll take it easy. Take care of some chores and such. That's it for now. As always, here is the link to more pics! Link thingy

Here are some pics from this morning (Sunday 9/28). Maggie saw her first horses.  Click here

 



5 comments:

  1. We drove out of our way to see the corn palace when we were in Rapid City getting our licenses. I think it was worth the trip :)

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    1. Oops, make that Sioux Falls :) Rapid City woulda been WAY outta the way!

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    2. Yup. We agree Laurel, it was worth it. We'd like to see it in August when they finish all of their plans for this year, but we won't be back then. Maybe when the weather is cooler.

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  2. Joe, corn and soybeans is all we have around here too. Have fun! I'm going out in the yard and moving two dump trucks worth of soil today. Thank god for the little excavator I rented for the day!

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    1. John, I think I'm having more fun than you!

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