SharivilleLife stories from Shari

Today is pack up day and that’s no small chore after 12 days in one spot. What a pleasure to have been able to stay in such a splendid area with so much to see.  I somehow know that wherever we stay there’s so much more to see and do, but we don’t stay long enough to really investigate.  Here we did it up right.  Not exactly planned that way though.

Our timing could not have been better.  The workers here came by this morning with a note that the weather service has predicted below freezing weather for the next few days, so as of the morn they will be shutting off the water.  So Jerry filled our water tank half full and buckled up the water system.  Like I said, lots of things to get done before we pull out in the AM.  I can’t believe how cold it’s gotten.  Jerry has to keep coming inside to get warmed up while getting ready to boogy.  I think snow is on it’s way.

We made a run to Wal Mart to stock up on some supplies.  Never know where the next one will be.  We put another 30 gals of fuel on board.  It’s $2.59 a gal here.  Jerry is now all hooked up and all we have to do is unplug and hit the road.  We were going to go up to the clubhouse for a burger, but it’s just to cold out there.  So, instead I’m making a hearty roasted garlic potato corn chowder.  I even put bacon in it and everything tastes better with bacon, not to mention the garlic.  Sounds good doesn’t it Kathy?  I have some very nice knives to cut veggies with, thank you Kathy.  You’ve helped equip both my home kitchen, and my very cozy home away from home kitchen.  I think of you so much.

In the morning all I need to do is round up and crate the babies, pull in the slides and we are headed for St Louis, Mo.  It will likely take a couple days.  We do have a fun spot located on the way, will tell you about it tomorrow nite.

Hugs to all,  S and J

I can’t believe I just opened my Coast to Coast book and picked out such a very nice RV park.  Orginally we were only staying 3 days, but even before the truck took a dive I knew we would need to be here longer. This resort is a 5 star Coast Delux.  It has more than 300 full hookups, a store, snack bar, great ice cream, and a club house with everything including a heated indoor swimming pool, which we will use with the rest of the fogies here. Very very nice  place to be stranded.

Today we drove around whats called Iowa’s great lakes area.  It encompasses Spirit Lake and East and west Lake Okoboji. We are at the latter and it’s suppose to be one of the bluest lakes in the USA.  Its definately a pretty blue.  We drove around all three lakes today what lovely homes along the lakes.  Theres lots of retirees around the area.  We stopped and had Mexican food, very good.  Lots of  places are closed already for the season, but thats OK because its peaceful here.

These are glacier carved lakes .  West Okoboji is spring fed, a georgous shade of blue and 134 ft. deep,  They fish for Walleye here, have never caught one or eaten one either, but they swear by them here.  They have some antique shops here and yes Angie, I did find you something very pretty.  There are some really nice old Victorian homes In Spirit Lake.  They also grow the most magnificent Blue Spruce trees around here and I love, love, love Blue Spruce trees.  Well home early  to relax with our feline family, Winkum, Blinkum, and Nod.  They are loving their trip and especially this park.  There are lots of birds and squirrls and folks walking dogs right by their huge back window.  More Later,            Hugs, S and J

Today was  a really peaceful and pleasant day.  We drove up into the northwest area of South Dakota.  This area is mixed plains and prairies and piney woods.  Lots of tourism thrives here in this area.  They have spoiled some of it with non essential exhibits, but that’s only my opinion others may disagree and appreciate the commercial aspects.  Certainly the merchants promoting it all.

We drove thru Spearfish canyon and that was beautiful.  We saw 3 different waterfalls. SD waterfalls are far different form our west coast waterfalls. They are very pretty here just smaller.

We went to one of the best museums I’ve seen.  Its in Bell Fourche, a really small town.  It was a small museum , but was stuffed with everything you could think of from the 1800′s and early 1900′s. I took lots of pictures. Bell Fourche is also the geographic center of our nation. Its complicated, but if you were to balance this country, I don’t know why that would become necessary, but it would be done from this town.

We picked today to take the last long ride in our area here because according to the weather channel, and I don’t know what I would do without the weather channel, we had a storm front moving in and it did.  It was raining by the time we returned to the RV.  So we are snuggled down in our home away from home and listening to the rain drops on the roof.  Jerry is drinking coffee and me tea and I think I will make some brownies. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.            Hugs,  Shari and Jerry.

Well we would have got an early start, really we tried, but ended up waiting for a terrificly beautiful thunder and lightening storm to pass.  The wind was really howling.  It’s so nice to sit here in our little home away from home and snuggle down and sip coffee and watch the storm out our huge big back window. Finally we struck out because the word we got was that it was only going to get worse.  Left Wendover around 10:30 out across the salt flats headed for lunch at the Flying J and fuel stop in Salt Lake City.  It really was pretty with the occas rain squalls, the wind did slow Jerry down to about 65. All along the readside were the prettiest little yellow sunflower type flowers, they cheered up the dreariness of the ride. Got into Salt Lake, Jerry fuels up mainly at Pacific Pride stations, well somewhere in that city was a station, but where?.  Mary, I just prayed we would find it easily and so we did , almost immediately, It was  a miracle. prayers answered. It was a fiasco finding out how to work the pumps, there were lots and lots of big rigs pulling in and around us in the meanwhile, every station has its own particular way of doing things. We finally got the card to work. We put 125 gallons on as we had not fueled up since we lift Chico. Then up into the Mts. and to the high prairie of Wyo.  We saw all kinds of animals,cows, goats , large herd of black and white pigs and even wild antelope.  This is definately animal country. Very very pretty scenery, lots of colors on the Mts, green valleys with streams, so peaceful.  Here we are at a KOA, RV park in Rock Springs, Wyo.  Tomorrow on to Laramie and maybe we will stay 2 nites there.  We have to be in Mt Rushmore on Thur. the 17th.  So we are on schedule.  Hope all is well with everyone at home, thinking of you all, but really enjoying this trip so far. We are now 967 miles into the trip.  More later,   Love to all,   Shari and Jerry

Hello again, 2nd day of trip.  We left Winnamucca at noon.  Couldn’t get started earlier as Jerry was chatting with a fellow RV er.  You know , ” Oh yes, we’ve been there or Oh yes, we have to go there.”  Then to see who can lie the best about fuel mileage.  RVers are really nice folks.  We ran into 2 rain squalls crossing thru the Nev desert, beautiful, cooled down the tires, because if it says we can go 75  that means at least 70. We really do make the time tho.  All the way listening to the CD version of The Shack. It was a great book and now Jerry doesn’t even have to read it. The drive was nice , straight road, Mt’s on both sides with big billowy clouds over the Mt’s. This nite will be spent in Wendover Nev, right on the boarder of Utah.  Ate a great buffet at the Casino where the RV park is.  Elsie they had the most huge peel and eat shrimp, thought of you.  Tomorrow on to The Great Salt Lake and beyond on into Wyo. We’ve seen all the Salt Lake City stuff before so we will skip that.  Tomorrow nite who knows?  Catch you all later,      Shari and Jerry

Hello all, well what a first day, got started late 11am, going across the Sierra’s right at Donners Pass we ran into a torrential rain storm, so heavy the windshield wipers could not keep up.  We had lightening strike right in front of us, we were at the 7300 foot elevation.  Then on into Reno for a lunch, the we struck out again across the Nevada desert on hwy 80, and just east of Reno we hit a sand and dust storm.  Well anyway we made it into Winnamucca for the night.  Nice RV park , nice people and great soft serve ice cream, you know me and ice cream.  Tomorrow ” FORWARD HO”, headed for Utah , hopefully we will make it to Salt Lake City, maybe stay a couple of days in that area.  Oh yeah, by the way my wireless card works great, it will be worth the money just to pass on this saga. Everyone take care of each other, and tomorrow is another day.  Love to all  ~   Shari and Jerry