Wednesday, Aug. 8th

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote about our summer. We've been extremely busy the past few months working, enduring some unusually high temperatures, and having a few friends stop in at Hart Ranch for a visit. Our summer has been warmer than usual and all our grass has gone to "summer dormant" brown. We have managed to keep our Center Court green with watering twice a night, but the remainder of the park has suffered from the heat. It has gotten so bad that we were asked to stop watering the unnecessary parts of the park and all washing of vehicles has been terminated. The Hart Development Co., the owners of the all of Hart Ranch (except the RV park) are drilling another water well to keep all the residents in water. We're in a seven-year drought and sure could use about three days of steady gentle rain. We expect to get some rain at the end of August or early September and that will green everything up and probably eliminate the water restrictions.

We have had the joy of having two couples from our group of Monaco friends visit us this summer.Rick and Joann Stone, from Oklahoma City, spent three nights at Hart Ranch and then moved over to Ellsworth AFB for two weeks. They have been touring all the spots in the Black Hills and have afforded us the opportunity to get together several times for a meal. Last week Bob and Marlene Rea arrived for a week. All three couples have had some fun times getting together, eating, talking Monaco coaches, etc. We had the chance to enjoy the Firehouse Brewing Co. in downtown Rapid City, the Rockin' R Restaurant in Hermosa for their all-you-can-eat ribs, and lots of sitting and socializing. Both of those couples are moving on to other locations by this weekend and will be able to avoid the crazy crowds that have converged in Sturgis for the annual motorcycle rally.

One of the high points of the summer was the surprise visit of Dave & Ona Dyas as they returned to San Diego from a trip to Minnesota for a family reunion. They stayed up on the interstate at a Super 8, but we were able to pick them up and take them down to our "home", show them the park, and enjoy dinner at Shipwreck Lee's. It was a fantastic evening with them and a thrill to see them in our part of the country!

I took off work Monday, the 30th, to help in a golf tournament for the Rushmore Rotary club. This is a small morning club of 65 members that I have thoroughly enjoyed in the years we've been coming up here. They hold a golf tournament every year to benefit the Black Hills Children's Home. This year I worked at a "floating hole" and sold chances to get a cash payoff. The tee box was on a slight hill and the golfers had the chance to hit three balls down to a floating hole (about 8' across and filled with sand) for $10. They also got a sleeve of new balls. Anybody who hit the sand and the ball remained on the sand would split half the pot with the Children's Home. We had 128 golfers and 104 participants. When I took the money we made to be counted, I had $1,040 in cash! They told me that was a record amount collected! All totaled we raised over $48,000 for the Black Hills Children Home - not bad for a single golf tournament.

As many of you know, while we are Hart Ranch we stay 21 days up on the nice concrete pads and then have to move to the overflow area for nine days. After our last nine days we moved back up on Monday, the day of the golf tournament. When I started the engine on the coach there was an "Alt Fail" light that came on and stayed on. I shut it down, let it stand for a minute, and restarted the engine. The light was on again. So, I drove it up to the concrete pad site we were assigned and parked the coach. I immediately sent a message out to the Monaco list asking for suggestions. And I went on to the golf tournament. On Tuesday, with some great help from one of the guys I work with, we removed the alternator and I took it the local NAPA where Hart Ranch has an account. They didn't have a rebuilt alternator in stock, but could get one shipped in from Sacramento for about $900 plus shipping (our cost). I told them I needed it sooner so they recommended The Repair Shop in Rapid City. I drove over there and was told they could probably do a rebuild on it and have it done on Wednesday. Wednesday morning they phoned and said it was ready. We drove in to town and picked it up. They head rebuilt the armature, regulator, and replaced two bushings - basically a complete rebuild. It looked like new. The bill was $155 - Hart Ranch cost!!!! I got back to the coach, reinstalled the alternator, and it checked out perfect. Now I know what it is I like about these smaller town businesses!

We are finally on the road again, but for just a long weekend. I have a cousin who is turning 90 yrs. young and his kids are throwing a birthday party. Several family members are coming from different parts of the country and this will be quite a reunion with some cousins I haven't seen for nearly 45 years. We left Hart Ranch Thursday about 1PM headed south for Lincoln, NE. As we traversed along highway 79/385 toward Chadron we saw the brown grasses of the Black Hills slowly change to green. We stopped in Chadron to get a headlight for the coach as the right headlight had burned out. We continued south to Alliance and turned east on highway NE-2. It was still early enough to get some more miles so I pressed on to the small town of Thedford and their city park. We arrived about 6PM after changing time zones to the Central zone.

Thedford is a small farm town that is on the BNSF railroad tracks. The tracks were about 100 yds. from the city park, so we heard the trains all night long. We had four hook-up sites with 30-amp electricity and a water spigot available to us. There was no activity in the park all night long and it was an ideal spot to crash for the night. By 9AM we were secured and ready to travel again. We drove about 170 miles to Genoa checking several small towns and parks along the way. We hooked up in the Genoa city park and drove over to cousin Ike Anderson's home. We had visited them in May and seen their new-to-them home. Ike is in the process of getting the home ready to move in to and I tried to offer some help in laying some carpet in the basement rooms. We worked all afternoon and then went to supper at the Great Plains Café for a chicken-and-fish buffet meal. We finished and headed for the park and the coach. The humidity is high but we weren't able to get plugged in to 30-amp electric - there were other trailers already in the park. We spent the night with fans running, but it was still warm and humid. Saturday morning Ike picked me up and we went to the Café for breakfast before we headed to the house to finish the carpet work. By noon we had mostly completed the job and we went back to the coach to prepare for moving to Lincoln.

The two-hour drive to Lincoln was enjoyable as we stayed off the interstate and took US highways. We arrived at the State Fair Park campground, found a spot, and hooked in to 50-amp electric. We started both air conditioners running and were comfortable inside the coach. Once we got connected we both took showers and rested for about an hour before leaving for the country club and the birthday celebration. The 10-mile drive to the country club was easy since Lincoln's streets are laid out pretty square. It's fairly simple to navigate around this city.

The party was a fantastic success! I had the chance to meet several branches of our family tree that are really extended. We are related to the Day clan by going back to my great grandmother and her two sisters and brother. I have run out a "schematic" to visualize how the relationships meet. It's an interesting path as my name tag had me listed as a first cousin-twice removed. It was an opportunity to hear some great tales about George and his 90 years of life experiences. We had a tasty dinner with desserts and lots of socializing with family members. We returned to the coach by 10PM and retired soon after that. The air conditioner ran all night long since the 10PM outside temperature was still 90 degrees!

On Sunday morning we got up, drove over to the hotel wheremost of the family members were staying and met two of my cousins for a breakfast - John & Ruth Anderson from Eugene, OR and Nancy Obermeyer and her grandson, Austin. Austin is a special guy that doesn't seem to mind spending time with us "old folks". He's a good student, helps Nancy a lot around her house, and is fun to be around. I especially enjoy his company and doing things with him. After brunch we returned to the coach to meet Nancy, our new dog, and sat around and talked until noon. I drove John & Ruth back to the hotel for a rest and I returned to the coach for a short nap with Austin and the pup. Dottie said we all were sleeping on the bed with the dog in the middle - me snoring, Austin crashed, and the dog at peace between us. At 2PM we all met back at George's retirement home for an ice cream social and to meet more family. I was able to talk to George one-on-one and get some stories about my father. We left at 4PM, went to the coach to get some dirty laundry, and drove to a laundromat. We picked up a pizza and came home to rest for the remainder of the evening and plan our return trip to Hart Ranch.

On Monday morning we were up early after having to sleep with the air conditioner on all night. We drove west out of Lincoln and fueled up at a Shell truck stop paying $3.02/gallon for diesel fuel. We headed west on I-80 to Grand Island where we turned north in to rain. The only adverse weather we encountered on the whole trip was in Grand Island where we ran through rain for about 20 minutes. Our route took us along the North Loup River and on to Ainsworth where we decided to press on to Valentine. The city park in Ainsworth had about 8 trailers and motor homes parked at all the 30-amp plugs, so we decided to drive another 45 miles to the Wacky West RV Park. We had stayed there last May when we were enroute to Rapid City. At that time we saw their Schipperke pup and marveled at the energy level of an 8-week old puppy. The folks gave the dog to their grandson who hasn't taken the time to do any training and the dog is going to be an outside dog. It's a shame because she's such a cutie and would be a great house pet with some training. After checking in I gave the coach a quick bucket-wash bath. While I was cooking some brats on the BBQ, the owner of the park walked over and gave us four ears of sweet corn right out of the field. We cooked them up also and had a terrific dinner. We were in bed early and relaxed after a drive of about 312 miles.

On Tuesday morning we were up early and prepared to travel. We drove west on US-20 to Chadron, NE, then turned north on US-385/SD-79 to Hart Ranch. We arrived about 1PM and settled in. Checking with folks parked around us, we heard all the horrifying details of Friday night's hail storm and subsequent damage. Over 70 rigs parked in our storage lot sustained damage to roofs, vent tops, skylights, and some sidewall damage. Many will require complete roof replacements. The hail balls were the size of softballs and had points protruding from them - much like the mace of medieval times. Some were round, but most were shaped like potatoes with numerous points sticking out. When the hail began to fall, the balls would hit the ground and bounce 15' into the air before coming down again. There were holes punched in our plastic picnic tables and holes in the roofs of the steel buildings back in our Maintenance area. We really lucked out with some excellent timing for leaving here!!

We're back at the "work routine" and anxiously waiting for the month to pass. The water restrictions have been lifted so we are allowed to wash our vehicles now. We're glad to be back where we can open the coach at night and breathe the fresh air instead of air conditioned air. Dottie won't go back to work until Monday - after Sturgis week - so she's enjoying the free time during the day.