A Pause in the Plan

Sioux Falls Park

Today we are in Sioux Falls...still. We spent Friday and Saturday nights in the I-Truck parking lot, and this morning we gave them the keys, said a prayer, and went to breakfast. We may as well make the best of an otherwise bad situation.

There's not too much to do in Sioux Falls in October. After breakfast, we drove over to their main attraction, Falls Park. It's not hard to see why this town exists. What a beautiful scenic water fall. One poet described it as "a thousand waterfalls in one," and it's easy to see what they meant as you walk around and see cascade after cascade up and down the river.

"A thousand waterfalls in one"

We got in a good morning walk through the park, and then Mark wanted to visit the Battleship USS South Dakota Memorial (I sat in the car for this one). Unfortunately, the inside museum portion was closed for the season, but he walked around the outside a bit and looked at the displays. 

It was chilly and drizzly here today, so we decided to head over to the local mall, which is always good for escaping the weather. We had Caribou coffee and walked around some more. (I managed to clock over 10,000 steps today. Yay me!) 

USS South Dakota Memorial

After a visit to one of the area wineries and lunch, Mark decided to check on the progress of our repair and was told that the turbo charger needed to be replaced. The case was cracked! 

Needless to say, we're getting a little frustrated with the expensive problems this motor home keeps throwing at us. Just before the turbo charger problem, our furnace stopped working. So we need to have a mobile RV repair service in Rapid City look at it when we arrive there. It's rather important to get that working, as the electric heater on the AC unit doesn't work especially well in very cold weather. And this morning the living room slide is giving us grief again. We're not sure how much longer it will hold out before we have to replace the motor. We're beginning to think we bought a Class A "money pit." 

Sweetie is happy to be out of the car.
(And yes...that's yarn on the bed. It was pretty.)

Tonight we are renting a room at our "home away from home," the pet-friendly La Quinta Hotel. Watching the Weather Channel, we learned that snow is predicted for Montana and the Rocky Mountains later this week-- in feet, not inches. Once the turbo charger is fixed, and the furnace is fixed, and (God willing) we're back on the road again, we'll be moving our route a little further south in hopes of avoiding winter weather.

In the meantime, what else can we do in Sioux Falls?...that doesn't cost money. That's our challenge for tomorrow.