Bad to the Bone - Lands

Wow....South Dakota is an absolute beauty of a state. The fields roll on as far as the eye can see, which makes for smooth straight driving! Yesterday we drove a total of 14 hours from the east coast of Wisconsin right on through Minnesota, and on to the west side of South Dakota. We originally planned on breaking the drive into two days, but got a little antsy after sitting for a week and a half.

 When we arrived at the Badlands we found a free campsite within the park known as the Sage Creek Wilderness Campsites. This campsite is known for the wild buffalo that roam the grounds of the site (which is totally why we picked it!!) We were exhausted from driving all day but the excitement was still bubbling as we drove through the night. On the entry road (that was pitch black and taking us deep into the middle of no where) we were crawling along when all of a sudden, TWO buffalo come dashing out of the darkness across the road! Very exciting seeing our first wild buffalo. Once we got to the site we circled around looking for a nice nook to park the cars in. When we found a good spot and all the lights were shut off, we stepped out of the car in the most beautiful night sky imaginable. The milky way was shining bright and clear as day. The amount of shooting stars we saw were incredible, some lasting 2 or three seconds across the sky. After admiring the sky for a little while we all headed to bed to rest for our day at the badlands!

On our way to breakfast at the "#1 roadside attraction" Wall Drug, we stopped to see the herds of Buffalo within the area we were camping. It was amazing. We walked right into the area they were standing around in and got some great shots. When we were walking out we met a retired man who was a bit of an amateur photographer himself. We took a minute before heading out to swap cameras to see each others photos. As we were talking he asked where we were headed n our trip and then had me get the road atlas out to point out some great places he suggest we visit. He was a really cool guy, we will most likely take him up on some of his suggestions!

The Badlands. 

 Once again I'm going to use the phrase "pictures don't do justice". The pure size of these canyons are breathtaking. Their shapes and colors are truly awe inspiring. We drove through the whole park from one end to the other and stopped at nearly every view point. At one stop, we even took a nice long hike into the middle of...well...NOTHING! But it was great all the same! One of my favorite spots was the Yellow Mounds. To see the colors of the earth change so vividly in these rocks was something ill never forget. I even learned that the yellow layers of rock date back to 67 MILLION years old!

So its been a beauteous day here in South Dakota. We are now at our campsite for the night in the town of Wall. Tomorrow I believe we are going to see Mt Rushmore and Windy Caves National Park.  After that we should be on our way westward some more!

We are breaking out of here!!

Even though we are probably only a day or two from qualifying for residency here in Wisconsin, tomorrow marks our first day back on the road! After 10 long days here in the Milwaukee/ Kenosha/ Racine area we are ready to continue our journeys west. I guess third times a charm. After two computers failed to fix the van, the third and final computer from Vintage Parts was installed today eradicating the issue. Although we are about a week and a half behind schedule we are more than ready to tackle the long drives to come. We pray Palmen Dodge did a good job fixing the van and that it will trek on with no further complications!

As unfortunate as our situation was, we made the best of it. We got to see a lot of Wisconsin that we would have never seen otherwise. It's been a few days since our last post when we visited the Jelly Belly factory. Since then, we have explored the surrounding towns and even got to visit the Miller Brewery, Home of the Highlife! That was probably my favorite day here in Wisconsin. We got free beer and a tour of the birthplace of one of my favorite beers :) 

mMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMmMm

Could this be our last day in Wisconsin?

After a somewhat disappointing turn of events in finding out the "overnight shipping" was not in fact over night, we had no other option but to spend yet another night in Milwaukee WI. (night number 5) This time we stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The silver lining shined again on our situation as we were granted access to the VIP lounge of the hotel that included free appetizers as well as beer and wine. The guest services employee at the hotel Kathy Krause was the most genuinely hospitable person we have met thus far in Wisconsin. Her lively attitude had the whole lounge laughing and conversing together. It certainly made our experience at the hotel a memorable one. We met a lot of great people through the VIP lounge who were a pleasure to talk with. We hope you all find this post with ease and follow the ones to come. Thank you again Kathy! We hope you win your "employee of the universe" as you liked to call it! 

 

( and a special thank you for all the goodies you hooked us up with for our trip !! )

The part for our van is out for delivery today! Hopefully it gets installed and running in a timely manner so we can hit the road at a decent time!

Another Post, Same State

If you follow, you know we have been broken down and spending time in the Great State of Wisconsin. lol Well we are doing our best to keep busy and maintain a level of fun and excitement. Luck for us, Jelly Belly has free tours of their distributing factory! woo hoo! free candy haha! Anything to keep the time passing while we wait for the van to be fixed. We thought of how Celines Pepere would be quite jealous, as he loves jelly beans :P 

The dealership was supposed to have us back on the road today but unfortunately, the part that they ordered from Chicago was "faulty" and did not fix the issue. After much debate, the general manager assured me he would get an answer for us as to what would happen next. We were told that they were going to have to order a new computer for the van. The unfortunate part of that is, we had got the last computer module from the Chicago warehouse. This means that there would not be an overnight delivery. I was told that we would have to now wait 3 to 4 days for the new part to be shipped. I demanded overnight shipping on the part as we do not have the means to keep finding places to sleep here. Somehow we got the mechanic to push for expedited shipping under the condition that there is a chance it will possibly take an extra day given the pretense that it's coming from another timezone and they might not be able to ge the order in quick enough to constitute overnight shipping. Fingers are crossed. !!!

Thanks to my amazing Mom, she helped us by putting us up in a Holiday Inn for the night in Milwaukee. After last nights weather consisting of thunder, lightning, rain, and strong LOUD winds, as well as the accompanying 1000 bug bites, we were not in the mood to be sleeping in a tent again on the hard cold ground. Thank you so much mom we love you !! :)    

There was a complementary Open Bar here at the hotel. We took advantage of it by trying out some local brews. The New Glarus Brewing Co. has a really nice Spotted Cow Ale that was actually really good. You won't find this anywhere else besides Wisconsin so why not try em out?

Waiting in Wisconsin

Sunday morning we headed out of Chicago, fueled up our van, washed the windshield, even stopped to have a nice breakfast at a local diner. It was a beautiful start to our long stretch west...until we broke down again! Yet again our van stopped running on the highway forcing us to call AAA. It was certainly bad timing because it being sunday, we realized that there were not going to be any auto shops open to look at the van until the following morning. So we found a shop that said they could take it sunday night and look at it first thing ( 7am ) monday morning. That didn't happen. The guy took until 5pm to tell us what the problem was and by that time the dealer couldn't order the part we needed until the following day.(tuesday) 

**Side note : Thank god Alyssa is still with us because if we didn't have another car we would have been completely stranded. There is nothing around here for miles. She is the BEST **

So we packed into Alyssa's subaru and headed for the nearest camp site, "Richard Bong Recreation Area". At first I didn't think much of it, my mind was mostly on the fact that I am hoping the van will be an easy fix, but then Celine pointed out something that was the weirdest coincidence. 

About 3 years back my dad had given me a small sign that said "Bong Recreation Area Exit 340" that he bought at a yard sale in Massachusetts and has been hanging in my room ever since. It wasn't until we were on the highway that we noticed, we were now going to that same place! "Exit 340"...We figured it has to have come from this place. How many other Bong recreation areas are there? Especially ones that are Exit 340??  We figured it was just meant to be and we had to stay.

The reserve was very nice! There were tons of walking trails overlooking fields of wild flowers. There was a pond to fish in, and a lake to swim in. We didn't swim but i was lucky enough to take the kayak out for a spin. 

So back to the reason we are still here in Wisconsin :/ ...The van. The guy at the shop couldn't find the issue and came up with the notion that it was the computer in the van not grounding out the ignition coil. Only issue I had with his diagnosis was that he wasn't even sure that was the issue and told me he wouldn't know until he went and bought a used one and put it in. I have been told from countless different people that when dealing with computers, you should NOT put a used one in because it could end up causing more issues than you originally had. In turn our only other option was to have it taken to a dealer to be fixed. We know that it is going to run us a lot of money, but we feel that it is the best route to take because we would also get the warrantee on the computer and the piece of mind that it is in fact getting fixed correctly. The only issue is, these parts are vehicle specific. That means we have to wait for the part to be ordered and delivered before we can have it put in and programmed. (what a pain in the butt) They said they will order the part and have it ready as early as they could wednesday, which is our best option(even though its going to cost $850 o.O) Another dealer told us we couldn't even be seen until next week!

Although we didn't plan on being in Wisconsin for anything more than just passing through, we have certainly made the best of a bad situation. Spirits are high, and we are doing our best to stay occupied and enjoy the state for what it has to offer. Currently that means, staying at "Happy Acres Campground" and using their hiking trails, bathroom/shower amenities, and their nice clean swimming pool!( OH YEA, and they have llamas, goats, and other small farm animals on site haha) We also got some cheese, obviously, and had lunch at the Mars Cheese Castle which was really good.

As nice as Wisconsin is, I can't wait to move on out of here tomorrow!