Alfateers... Not Mouseketeers

Our next trip to California got delayed a couple of days, but we finally got on our way October 25th. We have an appointment with Alfateers Service Center in Fontana, California to get some work done on our Alfa Motor Coach.

The first leg of our trip was a bit boring - Been there, done that! We stayed at Enchanted Trails RV Park, north of Albuquerque where you can rent one of these antique cars w/a trailer. How fun!





The second night we stayed in Williams, AZ - The Gateway to the Grand Canyon. When we arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park it was sunny & warm. When we woke up the next morning it was about 27 degrees outside & very windy; we were dodging tumbleweeds all the way into California.



We arrived in California on the 26th & spent the night at March AFB in Riverside. The next morning we went to the Alfateers Service Center. There were 7 other Alfa motor coaches lined up to get serviced. We needed new seals on our slide-outs & roof, door lock replaced, new hose reel, Co2 detector replaced, a ceiling fan in the bedroom & a lot of other small stuff. We also upgraded 2 of our TVs to LCD flat-screens. WOW! The picture is great! We ended up spending 6 days in the beautiful San Bernardino Valley (pictured here) .





With 2 dogs & a lot of time on our hands, we walked around dog parks & malls, went to the movies & ate at some of our favorite restaurants. My favorite place was Victoria Gardens, an outdoor mall in Rancho Cucamonga. This picture is a shot of a residential area near the mall - Gorgeous! We had perfect weather every day... can't complain about that.










BTW, look who we saw at the Victoria Gardens Mall... "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" : )

Wall Drugs

On our way back to Amarillo, we took a different route - We decided to head west through SD, then turn south into Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma & back to Texas. We planned to drive through the badlands, but it was pretty far out of our way & Joe wasn't feeling too well; he caught the cold that I had on the way up.

We did stop by the "World Famous" Wall Drug Store. It was huge & filled with all kinds of little shops - basically a shopping mall in the middle of nowhere.

Most of the scenery consisted of wheat fields & bails of hay, cotton fields & sunflower fields. At least it wasn't totally flat like Texas, it was somewhat hilly.

We stayed at this very nice RV Park in Kansas.

We enjoyed dinner with Bob & Claudia, our new Amarillo Ranch workamping couple. They spent the summer working at Custer State Park in South Dakota.

We had a earlier brief encounter of the weird kind when we went to the park & Bob greeted us at the entrance. Joe saw his name tag & said Bob... Bob said Joe... they obviously recognized each others voices from previous phone conversations. I was totally out of the loop.

We made it back to Amarillo Ranch RV Park the next evening.

Model T to Go Please

BTW - Here's a couple of pics I took before we left on our trip. This is one of the Model T's that stopped by The Ranch on it's way to an antique car show.

Crazy Horse & Custer State Park

The uncompleted & probably never-to-be completed carving of Crazy Horse is about 17 miles from Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of SD.
Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear commissioned the memorial to be sculpted by Korzcak Ziolowski in 1948. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain , considered scared ground to some Native Americans. It does not come without much controversy - It is a not-for profit undertaking & even though the federal government offered Ziolowski $10 million, not just once, but twice, he refused to take it. Ziolowski died in 1982. His wife & their 10 children remain closely involved in the project.

This is a scale model of the completed momemorial carving.

To learn more about the Crazy Horse Memorial click on this link www.crazyhorsememorial.org/

Later that same day we went to Custer State Park & wildlife reserve. The park is South Dakota's first & largest state park, named after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The park is over 71,000 acres of hilly terrain & is home to many wild animals including a herd of 1500 free roaming American Biscon.

As we drove through the park we saw pronghorn antelope & bison.

This lone buffalo was trapped, so-to-speak, outside the fence, unable to get to rest of the herd. He was making a moaning noise, kinda like crying... so sad. Liam just stared at him. I think he wanted to help him.

Further down the road we saw several prairie dog towns and ferro burros roaming the streets begging for food. These two stuck their heads in the back window & scared Liam half-to-death.




This poor couple was surrounded by burros, unable to escape.

We weren't going to let that happen to us - No way Jose!

Scout dog Tazzy spotted a couple of domestic Wheaten Terriers and a elk crossing!

On our way back to Rapid City I got this shot of Mt Rushmore through a break in the trees.

Don't forget, click on photos to enlarge.

Until next time...

Rush No More & Mt. Rushmore

Left my driver's license expire - OMG! So without a current license we can't get our new coach registered. And, OH Yeah!, our car registration is also due by the end of this month. Guess that means we're heading up to South Dakota where we have our mail forwarding address service. But first I have to get a new Social Security card - I left mine in Asheville. Nothing is ever easy.

We left Amarillo on the morning of September 26th, so we have only 2-days to get to Rapid City so we can get our SD driver's licenses... since mine has expired, I will probably have to take a written exam - Yuck! Better get studying.

We decided to go up through Colorado, into Wyoming & across to SD. We stayed in Fort Collins, CO, then pushed our way to Ellsworth AFB FamCamp in Box Elder on the evening of the 28th. That's just west of Rapid City.

State law requires that you must show proof of residency (a receipt to prove that you spent at least one night in SD). Got that now. Next, we stopped by America's Mailbox to make sure we had all our paper work completed. We only have one day left to get everything accomplished.

The next morning, the 29th, we went to the DMV. Surprise! Surprise! Some things are easy... I didn't have to take the written exam. I had my new SD license in less then 5 minutes. Joe , on the other hand, forgot to check if he had his SS card, which he didn't, so we had to go to the SS Administration to get an affidavit stating that he indeed has a SS #. Now we are both official residents of Rapid City, SD.

We rushed back to the America's Mailbox office before they closed - they needed copies of our driver's licenses & a check to cover the fees for both vehicle registrations. Thank goodness they will go to Pennington County office tomorrow morning to get our new plates. Now we can relax & do a little site seeing.

We went to the 9 o'clock history & light show at Mount Rushmore. It was great, but we knew we needed to come back during daylight to really take in the Majesty of the carvings.



The weather was mild & sunny, not at all what we expected at this time of the year. So we took full advantage of it & went back to Mount Rushmore. WOW! It is indeed spectacular.
Click on photos to enlarge.








Until next time...