Travel to Sioux Falls, SD

It was an especially long day on the road yesterday. We got a late start - almost 10 AM - and we stopped at Wall Drug along I-90 about 70 miles from Rapid City. We had seen the signs, about every 1/4 mile from the time we left Rapid City, until the exit for the place. It is a famous attraction that was started by a couple back in 1931 and they grew the business by offering free ice water to travelers. It is quit a sight:

The outside is really deceiving because when you go through the front entry doors, the inside opens up to many, many small specialty stores, stocked with leather goods, souvenirs, books, food and everything else imaginable:

It even had a chapel for travelers:

We had a cup of coffee and one of their home made donuts and hit the road again after spending about an hour walking through the complex.

The drive was very long (total of 370 miles) and there were strong head winds the whole way across the state and so many areas of highway construction along the way that we lost count of them. The gist of the day was I only got 6.5 MPG towing the trailer, on a flat Interstate highway, where I should have gotten at least 9.5 to 10 MPG. The winds caused the poor mileage and as a result of the construction delays, we didn't arrive at our destination in Sioux City until 6:30 PM - after a 1 hour time change where we lost another hour.

We decided to alter our plans a little bit as a result of the extra long day yesterday. Since there is no rush to get to another job, we will take an extra day to get to Patty's in Illinois. This will allow much shorter driving distances each day and give us a chance to relax before hitching up and heading out for another day. Also, there really isn't much for us to see the rest of the way, so each day should be non-stop, except for normal potty breaks. This will get us to Naperville early in the day on Thursday, instead of late on Wednesday afternoon - a much better plan to allow extra time for us to organize our rig for storage while staying at Patty's. We will stay in Shelby, IA, tonight, Davenport, IA, on Wednesday night, and arrive at Patty's on Thursday.

I also need to do a minor repair on the underside of the trailer this morning before we can leave. Somehow, a section of the underside moulding came loose - wind result ? - and it needs to be screwed back onto the underside flooring. That, plus gassing up both vehicles will result in a late start this morning. We only have to drive 185 miles to Shelby, so that helps.

That's about it for now, so it's time to get things moving for today...