All About Family

Camping with Joe & Bev at Dakota Meadows

Sometimes we forget how valuable family is-- for fellowship and camaraderie, for emotional support, for a helping hand when needs arise. I raise my glass in a toast to family.

Don't misunderstand. Families aren't perfect by any stretch. But the thing about family is we are connected by more than a chance meeting, by more than shared experiences, by more than casual acquaintance. We are connected by blood-- by the very will of God, who put us all together for his good purpose.

This year our Minnesota stay has been all about family. We have been richly blessed this past month by the helping hands and good company of our family--on Mark's side and mine.

At the end of June we were able to spend some time with Mark's older brother, Joe and his wife Bev. They are lovely people. Not having been in the Finnesgard family much more than ten years, I have not had a great deal of time to get acquainted with his extended family--brothers and sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews, and distant relatives yet to be discovered. So every time we get together is another opportunity to learn a little more about them. I doubt I'll live long enough to meet them all ( ... and I thought I had a big family!)

Mark & Joe

Joe & Bev camped next to us in their lovely Airstream. We had breakfast together, sipped wine together, enjoyed a delicious Mystic Lake Casino buffet dinner together, and conversed about all manner of things. We had a wonderful visit and look forward to another, God willing, next year.

Last post, you may recall, I talked about our bad leveling jack and how Brian and Maegan were gracious enough to have it repaired for us at their shop. No sooner did we have it installed but its neighbor on the other side failed as well, leaking fluid all over the pad at our Dakota Meadows campsite. Fortunately for us, we knew just where to go to get it fixed. So we headed back to APT where our grandson, Arick, removed the jack. It took the poor boy over three hours of labor to get the obstinate thing off, but he finally succeeded, and then plugged up the hole so we could at least use our back jacks to level, if need be. It would take at least a week to get this one repaired, so we decided to go on to Sioux Falls for our scheduled two week stop, and then return to Kasota to have it reinstalled before heading west. It was a backtrack, of course, but a necessary one.

A three hour project to get that jack out!

Leveling jack repair at APT

This visit to Sioux Falls, we stayed at Tower Campground, right in the city. It was nice enough, but felt more like a mobile home park than a campground. For what it had to offer (not much), we thought it was overpriced. But, the roads were good and the site was fairly level.

Tower Campground

We had a very productive stay in Sioux Falls. We got our driver's licenses the first week. It was the easiest process I think I've ever experienced for getting a driver's license. We knew that as full-time RVers we would need some additional paperwork, so we had that with us:  Proof of address, which we got from our mail forwarding service provider, YBA (Your Best Address); a receipt from Tower Campground showing we stayed at least one night in an RV park; and our current Texas driver's licenses.  Our wait was only fifteen or twenty minutes. Then we filled in a few forms, got our pictures taken, paid the fee, and received our license card on the spot.

Another task we had yet to do was to update our RV and auto insurance to South Dakota. We contacted our existing insurance provider (National General) and they made all the changes for us, but to our shock, the cost soared upwards by $2,000 per year! While we were lamenting how that any savings we might have made in taxes by moving our residency to South Dakota was completed cancelled out by the increase in insurance, it occurred to us... perhaps we should shop around.

And so we did. We made an inquiry at YBA (our mail provider), and the gentleman there referred us to the company that handles his personal insurance-- Clark Insurance, in Brandon. We made the call and met the lovely Jillian, who quoted us a policy that had more coverage for less money than what we were paying in Texas. God is good! We are now covered by Nationwide, and we have a policy that gives us "agreed value," which is calculated as the amount we paid (per the purchase agreement) plus the cost of any upgrades or repairs we have made to it (supported by documentation). And, we'll be able to continue to increase our agreed value over time as we continue to put money into it, with a corresponding increase in premium, no doubt.

If you are insuring your RV, I highly recommend that you either insure for replacement value or for an agreed value that will provide adequately in case you are unfortunate enough to lose your coach in a wreck and have to replace it. We learned this the hard way. Unless specified, insurance companies will only give you "market value" for your lost RV-- and don't forget, RVs are like cars, they lose their value over time. 

Our new "home town," Sioux Falls, is not an especially beautiful city for the most part, but it does have some beautiful areas. Downtown is quite nice, and of course the Falls are breathtaking. Most of the city resembles the urban sprawl you find most everywhere. But the city has all the important things:  a Costco, a Hobby Lobby, and a JoAnn Fabrics. Mark's list might look more like this:  A Harbor Freight, a Lowe's, and a Texas Roadhouse. We took a few drives around town while there, trying to get the lay of the land. And we made another visit to Falls Park. Last time we were there, it was chilly and damp and empty of sightseers. This time it was warm and sunny and filled with people.

Falls Park, Sioux Falls SD

This morning we left Sioux Falls and heading back to Minnesota. We arrived early afternoon and our grandsons, Arick and Riley, reinstalled the jack for us.

Arick & Riley Mayo, installing our jack

Mark supervised.

Tomorrow we head west again to Rapid City, where we'll camp for a few days. While there, Mark has one more problem to resolve - an issue with the chassis batteries. He has an appointment with Freightliner in Rapid City to diagnose the problem. In the meantime, he has a workaround to keep us going until we can fix whatever's wrong.

Safe & Happy Travels to All!