All Fixed Up

Today we are parked in a cheap campground in Piedmont, about ten miles northwest of Rapid City. There is nothing noteworthy about it, other than an inexplicable fly infestation. I thought it was going to be $18 a night, but they charge by the day...and any portion of it, apparently. Arriving on Thursday afternoon and leaving on Saturday morning turned out to be three days, and our $18 "a day" turned into $29 a night. This park will go on our list of "Do Not Return" sites.

It turns out that Sioux Falls doesn't have too much more to see than what we saw the first day we were there, except maybe the zoo, which we skipped. They do have a Barnes & Noble, though, and that's always good for an hour or so of browsing. So we checked out of our hotel, had a fabulous breakfast at The Original Pancake House (they fry their hash browns in clarified butter! Yum!), and hung out at the Barnes & Noble until about two o'clock. I-Truck still hadn't finished the repairs yet, so we decided to go to a movie. We found a "second run" theater playing "All Saints"...and of course got the call half-way into the film. "All Saints" is a great movie, by the way. I highly recommend it.

We picked up the coach and were on the road by about 5:30, pulling into our campground just as the sun was going down. Driving still didn't feel quite right though. We headed out in the morning, on our way to Rapid City where we intended to stay a couple days, and the engine began to do the same thing it was doing before-- shuddering under 1,600 rpm and losing power over 2,100 rpm. South Dakota is NOT flat, by the way. At every hill, our Follymobile was going slower and slower.  As much as we wanted to, hoped and prayed to, make it to Rapid City, by the time we neared Wall (of "Wall Drug" fame) we were limping along so slowly that even the butterflies were in no danger from our vehicle. They just fluttered by us. With cars racing by at 80 mph, we were literally a danger to the traffic. 

So we crawled off the freeway at Wall and called for help. Mark had been on the phone with his truck-driving brothers throughout the day and got the name of a Caterpillar engine dealer in Rapid City, and by 5:30 in the afternoon they got us right in and started trouble-shooting. If you have a CAT engine in your truck, Butler CAT, in Rapid City, is the place to go.

In the end, the problem was a bad fuel pump, which they fixed, and a clogged fuel filter, which they replaced. Another night in a motel, but at least I was able to get all my laundry done. And now we can hit those hills at 65 mph again...like a truck engine should. They also found two more issues that they recommended we take care of. Preventive maintenance. I'm all for that.

Again, I see God's providence in all of it. If the first shop had diagnosed the fuel pump and filter right away, which was the real problem, they might never have seen the cracked housing on the turbo charger, which could have caused very serious problems down the road. God sees what we don't. Our job is to trust Him always...even when things aren't going well from our viewpoint (which is blindness).

Romans 8:28  "And we know that all things work for good to those who love Him..."

This afternoon Mark, with the help of Jim, a local RV repair technician, has repaired the furnace. We have heat, finally!

Things are looking up. The sun is out after a brief rain. It's a beautiful day in South Dakota. Tomorrow we're going to go look at petrified trees and check out Deadwood, the town.

Morning road trip through eastern Black Hills

Fall colors