2021 Trip To South Dakota

[JEBar]

2021 South Dakota Trip Plan

June 11, 2021 Soaring Eagle Campground ===>https://www.campatsoaringeagle.com/ at 3152 Buttermilk Rd W Lenoir City, TN .... 399 miles / 6 hr 16 min .... booked 3/15/21

June 12, 2021 Duck Creek RV Park ===>https://duckcreekrvparkky.com at 2540 John L. Puryear Dr. in Paducah, KY .... 313 miles / 4 hr 39 min .... booked 3/15/21

June 13, 2021 Cottonwood RV Park ===>https://cottonwoodsrvpark.com/ at 5170 N. Oakland Gravel Rd in Columbia, MO .... 300 miles / 4 hr 25 min .... booked 3/ /21

June 14, 2021 Victorian Acres RV Park ===> https://victorianacresrvpark.com/ at 6591 Highway 2 in Nebraska City, NE .... 272 miles / 4 hr 8 min .... booked 3/15/21

June 14, 2021 Estelline South Dakota .... 304 miles / 4 hr 25 min

AT ESTELLINE FROM JUNE 15 TO AUGUST 19

August 19, 2021 Victorian Acres RV Park ===> https://victorianacresrvpark.com/ at 6591 Highway 2 in Nebraska City, NE .... 304 miles / 4 hr 25 min .... booked 4/28/21

August 20, 2021 St Louis West KOA ===> https://koa.com/campgrounds/st-louis-west/ at 18475 Old US Hwy 66 in Eureka, MO 63025 .... 383 miles / 5 hr 51 min .... booked 4/28/21

August 23, 2021 Clarksville RV Park ===> https://clarksvillervpark.com/ at 1270 Tylertown Rd in Clarksville, TN 37040 .... 290 miles / 4 hr 17 min .... booked 4/28/21

August 24, 2021 Asheville East KOA ===> https://koa.com/campgrounds/asheville-east/ at 2708 Hwy 70 E in Swannanoa, NC 28778 .... 350 miles / 5 hr 38 min .... booked 4/28/21

August 25 Home .... 242 miles / 3 hr 54 min

[JEBar]

figuring its time to get a make a little progress in our summer tip plans, a little while ago my wife started making reservations for the campgrounds shown above .... we ended up having to delete one choice and find a replacement .... as can be seen, as of now, 3 of the 4 reservations have been confirmed .... hopefully the 4th can be taken care of shortly .... sometime after we get home on the first of April we hope to be able to take care of a few (hopefully) minor mechanical issues with our truck and camper .... as one trip draws to a close, its nice to have another in the planning stage

[JEBar]

we are off to a good start .... all reservations for campgrounds we plan to overnight on our way to South Dakota have been made and confirmed ..

[JEBar]

as the door closes on one trip, it opens for another .. .. as noted, some plans for a June trip to South Dakota have been made .... first up will be scheduling our truck to go in to find a leak in its pressurized air system sometime within the next two weeks .... while the truck is fully operational, this is an issue I want resolved ... we would have had it taken care of in Texas but that would have required renting vehicle, an expense we didn't need .... the good news is, no need to replace the tires on both the truck and camper .... a thorough washing is going to be scheduled as soon as our record pollen counts go way down ....

[JEBar]

the top item on our pre-trip get done list is to eliminate a leak in the truck's pressurize air system .... somewhere there is a leak .... I believe that moisture in some line or some fitting froze and broke during our week of subfreezing temps while we were in Texas .... we've arranged to take it over to our local garage Monday morning .... our hope is the leak will be easy to find and repair

[JEBar]

this morning we plan to drive to a fabric shop to purchase material to make new curtains for all of our camper's windows .... the OEM's were installed when the camper was built back in October of '05 .... lets just say its time for them to go

[brm4450]

Went by this morning

[JEBar]

showed it to my wife .... made her even more home sick ..

[JEBar]

Sportchassis delivered to a local garage this morning at 8AM .... for me that's a bit early but we made it .... I told them there isn't any major rush so I don't anticipate hearing anything until late this week .... a bit later we got our second Covid shots so another pre-trip item has been checked off .... we've made the decision to not replace any tires on the truck or camper until after we get back from South Dakota (at the earliest), so another item checked off .... we hope to get busy on making new curtains for the camper next week but that's still way up in the air

[JEBar]

as can be seen in the first post in this thread, all sites needed to be booked for our return trip home from South Dakota have been taken care of

[JEBar]

today we get down to business in the process of replacing our camper's window shades with curtains .... my job is to take down the cornices and OEM shades, then to reinstall the cornices along with the new curtains .... history tells me that those cornices weren't designed and installed with easy removal in mind ...

[JEBar]

our '06 SunnyBrook Titan 5er has 14 windows, the first couple of pictures show most of them .... all have day-night shades as shown in the third picture below .... we've decided to replace them all with curtains .... phase one will be the 4 in the bedroom .... yesterday I removed the cornices and the shades .... the shades of all but one are attached to the cornice and the #2 square-head screws aren't easy to see, much less get to for removal ... they are installed to where they can't be cleaned in place so 16 years of dust has a way of accumulating .... next step will be for my wife to make the curtains ..... she hopes to get started on them next week .... once the bedroom windows have been taken care of, we will start on the 10 considerably larger shades in the rest of the camper

[JEBar]

with a beautiful day on tap, first up is to spend some time trying to teach a 5 year old how to cast his fishing rod .. .. rest assured, no hooks will be involved .. .. second is to unpack most of the camper's basement and store some winter items .... after vacuuming, to pack some summer ones .... traditionally the process signals an official transition and usually takes more than a day

[BigAl52]

Those day night shades suck and when the string breaks there fun to replace. Been there done that. Sure do like the roll down shades in the newer 5ers

[JEBar]

agree on the no fun to replace .... we hope to get serious about making and installing the new ones this coming week

[JEBar]

5/6 our Sportchassis has been in the shop for almost 2 weeks .... the mechanic working on it says the air leak must be tiny, he says he can't hear a leak ..... he's aired it up several times .... she'll drop from 125 to about 50 psi overnight .... a few hours later she will be at 0 psi .... I know he's working on it because the issue is exactly correct .... he says he can't hear a leak and wants to give it another try .... if he can't find it, we may just have to live with it until it gets worse .... its about time for us to have the carrier on the back of our 5er fixed and to fill the camper's propane tanks filled .... we plan to take care of those things after next weekend's club camping trip

[JEBar]

a major step in getting ready to hit the road next month has been taken .... in short, our truck is out of the shop and back in the yard .... as noted above, the problem was a leak in the truck's pressurized air system .... in speaking with the mechanic I learned that the leak was in a fitting and could easily have happened during our week in Texas when the temp set record lows .... the lowest we saw was 12 degrees .... he went on to day that he knew there was a leak but he couldn't hear it, nor could eye .... he said he aired it up and one of his young helpers well away from the noise of the shop .... the young fellow heard the leak .... when I picked it up, the truck had been shut up for 48 hours and the system was still aired up ..

[Hatchdog]

^^^^^^^

Great news, oh to have the hearing of the young again. Glad they found the leak and that you’re mechanically set to hit the road.

[JEBar]

years of experience clearly tells us its still way too soon to close the book on getting ready to head 1,500+ miles northwest .... we still have a short outing this coming weekend with our camping club ... it will be our last opportunity to test all truck and camper systems .... even if everything is OK, we realize a problem can happen but we know we've done what we can to head it off before we get on the road

[JEBar]

another item scheduled to be taken care of .... the welding failed in a joint of the receiver on the back of our camper .... we are scheduled to take it to a local welding shop next Wednesday .... they hope to get us in and out in a day