Hey all, been off for a while. Wanted to check in with everyone. We are over 2000 miles in and way above 2000 feet here!
So far we have visited Chicago (thank you for all of the recommendations.)
We have taken so many awesome pictures from Chicago, Rushmore, Pipestone, Badlands, Custer State Park, Sioux Falls, and several other places! If you guys have time....check out some of our pictures!!
Anyways, we have had such a great trip. It didnt start off well though. When we were about 300 miles into the trip I had a tire blowout (inner right tire). The roads heading up from Knoxville to Indianapolis were absolutely terrible! I guess shovel ready jobs did not make it there. I hit one of the potholes and blew the tire. And if that wasn't bad enough...the tread came off and my our friends/baby Godparents who are traveling with us in their brand new RV ran over the tread and it got wrapped around his exaust pipe on his brand new 2013 Itasca and ripped it right off. Well, we found a 24/7 tire place and they recommended a muffler place that would help us. No gouging at all. Paid $350 for the tire and they fixed the entire rear half of the muffler system for $79.00. I may hate the highway but the business people we encountered were A+! Only negitive I had was this happened 1 mile from the camping world and we limped over there to find out they do not do tires and do not do exhaust. :
Rushmore was great. Did not enjoy Hotsprings. I mean seriously....the only hotspring is in an indoor enclosure? Thats like an indoor pool! We went up to deadwood one day. Had a great time there. Don't miss this little town. We loved the one casino we played . It was called "The Lodge". Excellent low minimums with comped beer! Great table games but no roulette.
Oh yeah....Badlands....What an awesome amazing park! Had a wonderful time there. We stayed inside the park and prepaid for 2 days but left after 1. Would recommend it to everyone but I did not need more then 1 day there. I had already done it all so we packed up and just went on to Rapid City a day early.
Custer State Park......We have enough Bison pictures to choke a cow with! Fun fun park!! I loved everything about the Rapid City area.
We spent the night last night in Sheridan in the BigHorns. Nice KOA. We left at about 5:30am this morning and took 14 threw Big Horn Mountains. I keep having to up the ante of "that was the best thing I have ever seen". I know several people want to take the South Loop and go south of 14 because of the road......my advice....do not skip this road. I am so glad we left early though. Because it was 6am on a Sunday there was no traffic at all so we were not bothering anyone. We have a V10 gas coach and it took all she had to navigate these inclines (and then the decline) but we went slow...VERY SLOW (sometimes under 30mph). We kept our RPMs low and if someone came up behind us we just moved to the shoulder and flagged them by. They were so grateful. (Dont blame them).
We stopped in Cody and did the meusame. We did not give it enough time to do it justice but we wanted to head out. So we went to Grandma's Kitchen (liked it actually) and headed to West Yellowstone. One the way we saw the mud volcano's, had our fist bison traffic jam (made a You-Tube video on it. lol). And we saw elk and even deer mules. Not bad for just driving from east to west at about 4pm.
Well, its time to get to bed. We are getting up early and starting with the North Loop tomorrow. Supposed to get crappy tomorrow so hopefully the weather can stay on our side.
Here is the link to our pictures:
www.jenngreenberg.smugmug.com We have the different places separated by albums.
So happy to be here. Even happier our 13 yo coach is riding like a champ. She's got her issues but rides/drives like a dream! I guess we will forgive it for letting mice in. LOL. We opened up our foldout table and a mouse came out. We knew we had them because we have found "presents" from them in our drawers. Hmmph!
talk to you all soon!
Mike and Jenn (in KOA - West Yellowstone)
So far we have visited Chicago (thank you for all of the recommendations.)
We have taken so many awesome pictures from Chicago, Rushmore, Pipestone, Badlands, Custer State Park, Sioux Falls, and several other places! If you guys have time....check out some of our pictures!!
Anyways, we have had such a great trip. It didnt start off well though. When we were about 300 miles into the trip I had a tire blowout (inner right tire). The roads heading up from Knoxville to Indianapolis were absolutely terrible! I guess shovel ready jobs did not make it there. I hit one of the potholes and blew the tire. And if that wasn't bad enough...the tread came off and my our friends/baby Godparents who are traveling with us in their brand new RV ran over the tread and it got wrapped around his exaust pipe on his brand new 2013 Itasca and ripped it right off. Well, we found a 24/7 tire place and they recommended a muffler place that would help us. No gouging at all. Paid $350 for the tire and they fixed the entire rear half of the muffler system for $79.00. I may hate the highway but the business people we encountered were A+! Only negitive I had was this happened 1 mile from the camping world and we limped over there to find out they do not do tires and do not do exhaust. :
Rushmore was great. Did not enjoy Hotsprings. I mean seriously....the only hotspring is in an indoor enclosure? Thats like an indoor pool! We went up to deadwood one day. Had a great time there. Don't miss this little town. We loved the one casino we played . It was called "The Lodge". Excellent low minimums with comped beer! Great table games but no roulette.
Oh yeah....Badlands....What an awesome amazing park! Had a wonderful time there. We stayed inside the park and prepaid for 2 days but left after 1. Would recommend it to everyone but I did not need more then 1 day there. I had already done it all so we packed up and just went on to Rapid City a day early.
Custer State Park......We have enough Bison pictures to choke a cow with! Fun fun park!! I loved everything about the Rapid City area.
We spent the night last night in Sheridan in the BigHorns. Nice KOA. We left at about 5:30am this morning and took 14 threw Big Horn Mountains. I keep having to up the ante of "that was the best thing I have ever seen". I know several people want to take the South Loop and go south of 14 because of the road......my advice....do not skip this road. I am so glad we left early though. Because it was 6am on a Sunday there was no traffic at all so we were not bothering anyone. We have a V10 gas coach and it took all she had to navigate these inclines (and then the decline) but we went slow...VERY SLOW (sometimes under 30mph). We kept our RPMs low and if someone came up behind us we just moved to the shoulder and flagged them by. They were so grateful. (Dont blame them).
We stopped in Cody and did the meusame. We did not give it enough time to do it justice but we wanted to head out. So we went to Grandma's Kitchen (liked it actually) and headed to West Yellowstone. One the way we saw the mud volcano's, had our fist bison traffic jam (made a You-Tube video on it. lol). And we saw elk and even deer mules. Not bad for just driving from east to west at about 4pm.
Well, its time to get to bed. We are getting up early and starting with the North Loop tomorrow. Supposed to get crappy tomorrow so hopefully the weather can stay on our side.
Here is the link to our pictures:
www.jenngreenberg.smugmug.com We have the different places separated by albums.
So happy to be here. Even happier our 13 yo coach is riding like a champ. She's got her issues but rides/drives like a dream! I guess we will forgive it for letting mice in. LOL. We opened up our foldout table and a mouse came out. We knew we had them because we have found "presents" from them in our drawers. Hmmph!
talk to you all soon!
Mike and Jenn (in KOA - West Yellowstone)