It started like any travel day as we readied for the two-hour trip from Valentine, Nebraska, to Pierre, South Dakota. We unhooked the motor home from its full-hook-up utilities and headed out onto the highway like we have done hundreds of times before. It was just a few miles down Highway 83 before we crossed the state line into South Dakota.
Bigger and more colorful was the other welcome sign--to the casino immediately on the other side of the state line. Welcome to South Dakota, the home of casino gambling!
Denisa took a picture because the road quality also immediately changed. It looks like South Dakota didn't want to waste any money on extra asphalt. There was absolutely no shoulder on this highway, as a bed of loose gravel butted up to the outside white line.
We hate to complain, but that was followed by a long delay, as we waited for the pilot car to lead our group through a stretch of one-lane construction work. Then Denisa had to take another picture, as the next section of road felt like we were driving over speed bumps every 30 yards or so. The scenery was nice, but the roads today were some of the worst we have ever seen in our travels around this country.
It was only a few minutes after that picture that our trip took a definite turn for the worse. Buzzers went off and Mark was seeing messages on the dashboard to "check engine" and suddenly "Stop!" The power steering shut off as Mark manhandled our motor home off the side of the road.
He did a great job of getting us to a level spot and completely off the highway. Whew! Then he started checking for what caused all those warning lights to go off. We breathed a sigh of relief thinking of what would have happened if those lights had come on during that long stretch of one-lane road construction.
Just forty miles into today's drive, it soon became obvious that this motor home wasn't going anywhere on its own power. It's right at noon, and we started making phone calls. We have been paying the $99 coach-net annual fee for road-side assistance for the last five years, and it was time to see if they are as good as we have heard. Their first question was, "Is everyone safe and all right?" and then they began gathering information. From Mark's observations, they determined that we needed more than a mobile RV tech. We were going to have to be towed to the nearest repair center. That's when we decided to get comfortable because we were going to be here a while on this hill.
We are literally out in the middle of nowhere! On the edge of an Indian reservation, we are halfway between the tiny towns of Mission and White River. As coach-net tried to determine our exact location, they had to agree that we were a long way from anywhere. It was going to take some time to get a tow truck to us, and to find a repair shop that could handle our diesel engine.
Mark thought of things to do to keep busy. He called Tiffin to be sure he knew everything that should happen before our motor home was towed. He unhooked the car from the motor home. Then he thought about the motor home being towed at an angle, and decided to remove the entire tow apparatus on the back. It turned out that was a very good decision. Coach-net continued to call us with updates as they have now found a repair shop--88 miles away in Pierre, South Dakota. That's great, as that was our planned destination for today.
Even though this is not the way we intended to spend the day, we are still blessed. It is 70 degrees with a light breeze, so we are quite comfortable inside and outside our motor home while we waited. We also had a good phone signal for all our phone calls, as coach-net continued to update us. In order to keep ourselves from being bored or fretting too much, we found projects to do. We've heard the saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Well, we've been carrying around pecans that needed to be shelled, but we hadn't had the time to do that. So today's new slant on that saying is, "When life is nuts, shell those pecan nuts."
As the hours stretched on, we ate lunch. That's another good thing about being stranded on the side of the road for hours in a motor home--we had plenty of food. Denisa called our extended warranty company, alerting them that we would have a claim soon. Mark talked to the repair shop in Fort Pierre, and they recommended a tow service that coach-net is sending our way. Even though we are in the middle of nowhere, it is quite lovely as we look out our window.
The tow truck arrived 4.5 hours after that engine light alerted us that we had problems. We were certainly glad to see him!
The first order of business was moving a reflector post that was in the path that the truck needed to back up.
We also had other projects to do to ready the motor home for its first-ever tow. The generator muffler had to be removed from the front where the tow apparatus most go. The drive train had to be disconnected. It's not just as simple as hooking a tow truck up and taking off.
It took two hours to properly get those big tires up in the air. We are really impressed with Murdo All-Pro Towing. We've been blessed again.
Those tires are strapped in, and the air-ride system on the motor home is attached to the tow truck so it has the air bags to help it tow more smoothly.
In the two hours since he arrived in his tow truck, we feel like Cody has become our friend. We appreciate his attention to detail and the care he is taking with our home. We're finally ready to get back on the road as he eases back onto highway 83.
Cody has warned us that it will be a slow 88 miles to our destination in Pierre. Besides driving slow, he also stopped several times to make sure the motor home was towing properly. So as we ride in our car behind him, we have plenty of time to enjoy the scenery of the South Dakota hills as they go slowly by.
Cody also warned us that the roads we had complained about earlier were going to get worse. That "loose gravel" sign is an indication that he is right.
Our bad pavement turned into gravel through this long stretch of road. We were surrounded by miles of green grass and little blue lakes and wide open skies on this beautiful weather day.
We are averaging about 35 miles per hour, making this into a three hour drive. But we are glad that Cody is being so careful. Every time we come to a corner, Denisa snaps a picture. From talking to Cody, we estimate that this 88 mile tow would have cost us around $1,000 without our RV road-side assistance plan.
By the time we made this turn, it's 8:00 p.m.--eight hours since that first buzzer went off alerting us that this day was going to be a little different than we had planned. Coach-net is still calling us periodically, making sure that we are well taken care of. We will definitely be paying that yearly road-side assistance premium without question from now on!
We're glad that it's one of the longest days of the year, as we still had sunlight for our late arrival at Eddie's truck repair shop in Fort Pierre. The sun is setting as Cody pulled into the parking lot to adjust his tow angle because of dips in the parking lot.
The sun was setting at 10:00 when Cody got us back on the ground. He had to reconnect our drive train and our air system. It was faster coming off the tow, but it still takes a lot of time to do it right. Mark had talked to the manager at the repair shop before it closed, and they told us to plug into an electric outlet at the side of the shop. We had planned for a camping spot overlooking the Missouri River, but we are glad to be safely here tonight instead.
So we ate some leftovers for supper at 10:30 and were thankful for our day. We were blessed in so many ways--cool weather, a flat spot at the top of a hill on the side of the road, a phone signal to make calls, help from coach-net, a solid towing company, and a well-reviewed repair shop. Even when our wandering includes break-downs, we find wonders in the ways that God takes care of us.
When we find that something has been distinguished as a NATIONAL park, or a NATIONAL memorial, or a NATIONAL historic site, we make plans to check it out. We've never been disappointed. So we are in Valentine, Nebraska, to kayak on the Niobrara River--a NATIONAL scenic waterway.
We did our homework, and found that some of the best scenery on this 73-mile national waterway starts close to the wildlife refuge we visited the day before. So we arrived early to put our kayak in the water at the Cornell Bridge. We're here early because the weatherman is predicting rain for this afternoon, and we all know that weathermen are never wrong.
We had to purchase a $1 wrist bracelet to be worn while floating through the refuge. It doesn't matter to us, but it is also illegal to consume alcoholic beverages while floating through the refuge. That would put a damper on some people's float trips.
Because of all the rain, the water is running faster than usual. We won't be using our oars for locomotion today--just for steering along these tall cliffs on the side of the river.
While Mark was steering with his paddle, Denisa just laid hers to the side. That means her hands are free to snap WAY too many pictures. Leaving early in the morning, we had whispy white clouds on that bright blue sky. It's a beautiful day to be on the water.
Our kayak trip is twelve miles today, and we are floating at a rate of about 4 miles per hour.
We got out to stretch our legs at midpoint near one of those dramatic cliffs. Up to this point we hadn't seen a soul on the river, but the ranger had warned us that a group of 32 students weren't far behind us.
It's hard to describe how tall the cliffs are, so we were glad that the group came floating by while we were taking pictures. It is hard to see the tiny boats, as they are dwarfed by the big beauty beside them.
With the beautiful blue skies and the puffy white clouds, it was a perfect day to be on this river--dubbed as one of the prettiest in the country.
We are blessed to be wandering in our kayak down another of God's wonders today!
The Niobrara River is unique in that it has something called "surge flow." According to the web site, these "periodic surges move along the water surface forming surge-like breaking waves that can reach heights of three feet or more." They more often happen when the river is up, so we experienced the waves many times today.
Going through these wavy sections was like going through rapids of a faster river.
We enjoyed the songs of the birds as we floated down the river in quiet solitude. We didn't get pictures of the tiny songbirds, but we did manage a photo of this ugly old turkey walking close to the water.
But our favorite wildlife sighting of the day was of this doe in the tall grass. She was looking up when we first spotted her, but she ducked her head when Denisa snapped the picture. It wasn't until later that we realized she was nuzzling the area where she had left her fawn, whose tiny head is peeking out of the grass.
We spoke to the ranger before we left on this 12-mile journey, asking for landmarks so we could recognize our take-out spot at the state park. He mentioned this waterfall about half-way down our float trip.
He also mentioned that we would see a total of five bridges, so we counted them along the way.
When we looked back at the fourth bridge, we could see that the gray clouds were building behind us.
The fifth bridge was our cue to get out for a hike to Smith Falls. Now we can see that the rain clouds are also in front of us. We might be getting wet today after all.
It felt good to stretch our legs and make the short hike to Smith Falls. At 65 feet, this is the tallest waterfall in the state of Nebraska.
It felt like we were standing in the rain when we were standing close to the falls.
From the look of the clouds, we could be standing in the rain very soon. So we were glad that our take-out was just around the corner in the state park. In preparation for this river trip, Denisa had called several local outfitters, but none were interested in shuttling customers with their own kayak. That's when we came up with the plan for Mark to ride his bike through the wildlife refuge. But after we arrived in Valentine, we found that the owner of our campground works at the state park. So we arranged for him to give us a ride home after work. We packed up our inflatable kayak while it was sprinkling, and ate our packed lunch under a covered picnic table while we waited for Joe's quitting time. Then Joe shuttled us back to our car on his way home. Staying at Wacky West Campground had a benefit that we didn't even know about when we made that reservation!
It was a great day on the Niobrara River, with its steep canyon banks and its quirky surge flows. We are blessed to have witnessed the scenery of this NATIONAL scenic waterway, and now we're ready to head on down the road for more adventures!
After church, we left our nice campsite in Grand Island, Nebraska, for another long drive north and west through Nebraska. This section of the state is called "the sand hills." It was a three and a half hour drive through farm and pasture land . . .
with only the rail cars full of coal rolling beside us to keep us company.
The biggest excitement of the drive came just a few miles from our destination, when we saw the blinking sign that alerted us to water across the road. What?!? We don't have too many options for alternate road detours in this area! But we saw cars meeting us that had gone through the water crossing. So we waited our turn and slowly waded across the long expanse of water.
When we made it to the other side, we were only a few miles from our destination in Valentine, Nebraska. We're staying at a half-price Passport America park--Wacky West Campground. Even though we love the town's name, our main reason for coming to Valentine is to kayak the Niobrara River. To scope out the area, we made a trip down to the Niobrara Wildlife Refuge just three miles from our camp site. We found a herd of bison as we drove along one of the gravel roads inside the refuge.
Driving the car through this peaceful wildlife setting was just like a nice hike in the country, but easier on your legs.
Besides hunting wildlife, we are also checking out the road conditions through the refuge. We love kayaking rivers, but it's always complicated to figure out where to put the kayak in and where to take it out of the river. Even more complicated is figuring out how to use our available transportation to get between those two spots. One option is to bicycle between them, so we are checking out the gravel roads through the wildlife refuge that one of us (Mark) would have to bike to make that happen.
Valentine has a great bike path called the "Cowboy Trail" that goes right beside our campground. Too bad it does not go alongside the river to make that shuttle up the river easier. Instead it heads straight southeast out of town. We took our bikes on that path one evening, and it was a pretty ride in the country. This is a nice level path, as it once was the bed of the railroad that connected parts of Nebraska.
Our destination is just two miles away, and it turned this into one of our favorite rail-to-trail rides ever. We are headed to the old train trestle bridge that spans the Niobrara River 140 feet below. It looks like a ordinary ride over a wooden bridge from this angle.
But when Mark hiked down to get a side view, you can see that this ride was extraordinary.
If you look very closely, you can see Denisa waving from atop the bridge. We'll zoom in, to prove that we really were at the top of that big trestle bridge.
We also took pictures down the side of this old trestle bridge that was built in 1909.
The views of the surrounding countryside with the Niobrara River snaking under us were really nice as the sun was preparing to set.
Valentine calls itself "Nebraska's Heart City" and we already think we're going to love it here.
