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Retired Life. Sunday.
The alarm went off crazy early, even in the MDT zone, so we could go to church. After a few groans, we looked at the Jesus Picture below, remembered why church makes us happy, and got up and got going.
I attended part of the Youth Leader's meeting over the phone, getting prepared for next month's survival campout. Then we attended the Rapid City Ward.
Back at the home, we ate lunch, took a nap, and then took a break from traveling (we can do that since we are retired) and spent the afternoon at Crazy Horse Monument, a drive through the tunnels on the Iron Horse Road, and then to Mount Rushmore. Beautiful country. Patriotic and meaningful monuments.
Retired Life. Monday.
Today's headline: broken down brand new JEEP leaves old people stranded and homeless.
We got about an hour out of Rapid City and then the dash board of the JEEP lit up in red and screamed "ENGINE OVERHEATING!!!" Now, I never paid much attention to stuff in that Farm Mechanics class I took many decades ago, but I did know enough to pull over and shut it down. I even popped the hood and looked for leaks, broken belts, etc. (not that I could have fixed them if I had found them...) Nothing. It wasn't even steaming. So we let it sit for a while and cool down, then took off again. About a quarter mile later, it overheated again. So we pulled over, shut it down, and called the roadside assistance company to get a tow. (We have this plan for the other OLD JEEP. Sad that we needed it on the new one. 15,790 miles and the first breakdown.) Nearest tow truck was 45 minutes away as we were by then clear out in the boonies. Fortunately, there was a JEEP dealer in Spearfish, about another 45 minutes away the other direction.
The service dude easily found a split radiator hose. Good news: covered by warrantee. Bad news: not in stock. Can't get one here in the boonies until Wednesday. No other nearby dealers have one. Probably could get one from Napa, but that would void the warrantee. Warrantee covers a loaner, housing, maybe even food. So we're on Jeep's ticket now. But, dealer has no loaners. We walk to the Enterprise Rental place about a block away. Nothing available. We go back and ask the dealer if they have a Plan C. After a bit of grumbling, they said if we could find a car in Rapid City, they would have one of the clericals drive us there. The airport had one car left. And the nice lady did drive us (and Frivvy) the hour-long drive to the Rapid City airport. (Luckily, she has a Golden Retriever too so wasn't too shook up about dog fur in her car.) While she transported us, I cancelled all our lodging for the rest of the trip and started looking for new lodging for tonight. After a couple of tries, finally found a nice AirBnB Condo on a golf course that could take us in immediately. Got the rental car, drove there, checked in, drove back to the truck, loaded up our stuff, ate dinner, drove back to the Condo. Sigh................not too stressed as we have no schedule, nothing to get back for.........because..........WE'RE RETIRED!
So, we're stuck here for a couple of days. We'll watch some prerecorded football games, do some caching, read, and rest. A true vacation now.
See the pink Gladiator below. I tried to get them to just let us drive that for the two days because there is no way anyone is buying that thing any time soon. They didn't even respond to the idea.
And before leaving Rapid City this morning, we did go to a park and walk and find a very cool Geocache, in the pic below.
Retired Life. Tuesday.
Greetings from Sturgis, S Dakota. This is our 4th straight day in S Dakota. It's a nice place. Beautiful scenery. Friendly locals. Good place to be stuck. The JEEP dealership claims they will have us on the road by 1pm tomorrow. We'll see. We've kind of decided to start for home tomorrow either way. If it ain't running, then we'll drive this RAV4 home and come back for the JEEP at a later date.
So, what did we do today?
After sleeping in, we went out to a diner for breakfast (Taco Omelette for me and Corn Beef Hash and Eggs for Hanna.) Picked up salads at Subway to have later, took a hike out in the woods, found a Geocache so we could say we found one in Douglas County, took a nap, watched a prerecorded football game, watched some other shows. Nice chill day with no travel or appointments.
When he wasn't sleeping on the couch, Frivvy enjoyed gawking at the golf carts that went by.
Retired Life. Wednesday.
For food on our road trips....we actually bring our griddle from home because it is a lot easier to cook on than frying pans or other things found in AirBnBs. Nice breakfast. For lunch, we usually pack a sack lunch. And dinner, usually we pick up a salad at some place fast like Subway, Wendy's, Chick-fil-a. If we have time, we'll go out to eat. But, our experience is you can spend a lot of time sitting at a table in a diner (up to four hours per day if you eat out all three meals), spend more money, and eat more unhealthy. So there's how we do it. More time for travel and sites, less money spent, less calories consumed.
After that yummy breakfast, we packed up and checked out and drove the half hour to the Jeep Dealership in Spearfish. We were happy that they had the hose repaired and the truck was deemed operational. And thus started the grand transfer of all our crap from the RAV 4 to the JEEP.
The dealership parked the truck next to the pink one. Smart alecks. I told them I was already losing man points. I took a picture below. Which one would you drive?
Then we drove both vehicles the hour back to Rapid City to drop off the rental car. Then we were on the road again. Drove the five hours to Billings. Picked up a few caches. Ran into 107 degree heat as we approached Billings.
And, we saw a bear........pic below.
Finally, the Elk continue to hang out at the Highlands.
Retired Life. Thursday.
Started the day off by worshipping in the Billings Temple. Followed by lunch, pack up, nap, check out. Then drove to Great Falls.
About that JEEP radiator hose. We quizzed the poor mechanic to death about how this could have happened. He told us the hose had a split in it cross ways. Also that he found remnants of a foreign liquid, possibly windshield washer, in the reservoir, which would compromise the effectiveness of the antifreeze. He believes the split is from a box cutter and happened by accident at the factory when an employee opened the box of hoses. Hmmmmm.....
After some thought and discussion, Hanna and I are wondering if it wasn't sabotage. No one has had their head under that hood except the local dealer that changed the oil. Highly unlikely they put the wrong fluid in the wrong place. And what are the chances that the slicing took place at the factory last January and is just now starting to leak? Hmmmmm........
Then the discussion turned to who would do such a thing? JEEP hater? Neighbor that hates having an AirBnB next door? The host there had antisemetic propaganda in the house along with comments in his "house book" that implied only white supremists would visit Mt Rushmore. Could it be about him and his beliefs? Neighbors don't like him? Kids pulling a prank? Hmmmmmm.........
The things we talk about as we drive for hours....
Not much we can do about it. And the truck ran fine today again.
Retired Life. Friday.
Travel day. Caching day. See our yummy breakfast, see the cool geocache we found near the Great Falls airport. See pics of us finding a nuttyguy cache at Bynum Reservoir. (Frivvy liked that one.)
Made it as far as Lincoln. We were going to hike this trail down to the river, 200 yards, but then these hunters came along and said they saw two Grizzlies down there a bit ago. So we hiked near civilization instead. Saw a bunch of deer.
Retired Life. Saturday.
Checkout time wasn't until noon. That was nice. We were able to take our time and not rush. Even watched a bit of football before leaving.
Typical drive home. We had run out of food, so no griddle usage or sack lunches. Had to opt for those frozen breakfast bowl thingys. And then tacos in Missoula for lunch. Also stopped in St Regis (tradition) to gawk at stuff and eat ice cream. Stopped at 4th of July pass to hike for a bit.
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