We are South Dakotans!

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

We “live” in South Dakota now and our brand new state is SUPER CRAZY windy and cold today!

38 degrees with a real feel of 29!

So we decided to just chill out and hibernate in the camper until tomorrow. Then we’ll hit the road again and head up to North Dakota. (Wrong time of the year to be headed north but that’s where the money is!)

We got to Camp America Campground in Salem, SD on Monday afternoon. There was one other guy with a little R-Pod camper and a puppy, and a lady camping in a tent (crazy in my opinion because it’s cold!) but they both left the next morning and we’ve had the park all to ourselves since.

Tuesday morning we drove to My Dakota Address in Madison (about 40 minutes away). Teri was really nice and helped us get all our paperwork in order. We filled out change of address forms for the post office and I did a voter registration card. She made copies of our campground receipt for each of us and gave us copies of the residency affidavit then sent us over to the DMV around the corner to get our new driver’s licenses!

The only thing we could register was the motorcycle because we didn’t have the titles for the truck and camper. Teri is getting those from the bank and then she will register them and get our plates for us.

Allen was bummed because South Dakota doesn’t let you personalize camper plates. Our Ohio plates were BIGRIGN… But we are getting those for the truck instead. At least they were available! I think he would’ve cried actual tears if they weren’t!

He’s such a brat sometimes…

After all the address stuff we had lunch at the Country Cafe in town then went and got the fuel filter changed on the truck. On the way home we stopped and got some beer and Jager to celebrate our new domicile! The gas station sells beer (18pks of 16oz. cans!) and liquor, also ammo and hunting licenses, it has a casino and a fried chicken restaurant inside that seemed to be really busy. South Dakota is awesome. So when we got home we let Charlie run around off her leash and enjoy the grass and fall leaves – she needed that after being in a parking lot for 4 months then the truck for 4 days!

We called Hunter at American Adventure Insurance and switched all of our policies over.

That part took way longer than it should’ve considering I gave him all the info about 3 months ago, then even called last week to make sure everything was good to go and still valid.

We called all of our credit cards and loans and what not and updated our address with them and Allen updated his address with work.

Changing our domicile took lots of planning and research (see this blog post), but we got it done!

I still have lots of stuff to write about from our trip (we stopped at Mount Rushmore!) and I want to review all of the campgrounds we’ve stayed at along the way. So that’ll be coming soon! Cheers from a blustery South Dakota! (We turned our tank heaters on for the first time!)

And the Quake HOLD! held perfectly… That stuff is amazing!

Winnemucca = #winning!

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Winnemucca, Nevada. Who woulda thunk it’d be a booming little town?? We were definitely surprised.
We pulled into the I-80 Winnemucca KOA Friday afternoon, checked in, got hooked up and walked Charlie. It was my first time staying at a KOA and it was pretty nice. We were excited to put our awnings out for the first time in about 4 months! I’ll add a review in the next week or so. I should mention that there are a bunch of RV parks in this town. There was a brand new one across the street and one about a block down, so the KOA definitely isn’t your only option.

Once we got little Charles settled in we headed to Walmart for some RV toilet paper (we ran out in San Francisco-crappy! *pun intended*) Then we went to Winger’s for food and drinks. It was almost right across the street from the campground. I think it’s a chain restaurant but we’d never been to one. We had some beers and some wings then headed home and called it a night.

Charlie is climatized and used to mild San Francisco weather so we had to bundle her up!

Saturday morning we went to this 24/7 cafe for breakfast that Allen was seeing signs for on the highway. It was inside a casino. Love it. On the way there we passed a huge lot with buses pulling in and a whole bunch of parked pickups. We knew there had to be something going on in this little town down in a valley in the middle of the desert. We noticed Friday night that there seemed to be a lot of younger guys and Allen said there’s a lot of good looking girls for it being out in the middle of nowhere. Turns out there’s a big gold mining company in Winnemucca and they bus everyone to the mines. Pretty interesting…

Anyhow, after breakfast we stopped at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and got a new air pump.

We burnt our old one up on the fourth camper tire in San Francisco. (A Cobalt) This one is a little more powerful. It’s an MV-50 and it has little jumper cable prongs on it instead of a plug. We still have to find an attachment thingy to fill the dually tires but the camper is good to go!

While Allen was filling up the tires I spread some of my brother’s ashes. I just wish he could actually see some of this with me.

But, we are on the road again, heading for Wyoming by this evening! (Even though Allen wanted to stay another night just to have another breakfast at the casino!) Moving on!

Stateline, NV/South Lake Tahoe, CA trip!

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I’ve never seen views like we saw here. It was literally breathtaking! I’ve never been to a mountain town before and I was impressed. Everywhere you look you just see amazing natural beauty.
We checked into Harvey’s Casino Resort on Friday afternoon and then hit the casino. We played some video poker and took a free craps lesson. There was a camera crew making a commercial at the video poker bar and then also at the craps lesson so I guess we will be in two commercials we will probably never see!

The craps teacher

The hotel was right on the corner, at the line between California and Nevada. So we technically lived in Nevada for two nights.

After that we headed outside to daylight (very shocking to our casino adjusted eyeballs!). We got some drinks and food at Mc P’s Taphouse Grill. Then walked around a bit to check out the area.
We went to a comedy show after dinner. It was pretty good. I’ve seen funnier. It’s the second comedy show we’ve been to together. The first was somewhere in Florida a couple of years ago.

After the show we stopped at this sports bar in the casino. The bartender was from Cincinnati (like us!) so we chatted with him for a bit and had some beers and late night pizza. He suggested we go to Emerald Bay to scatter some of my brother’s ashes. It turned out to be a great tip!

the bartender’s map for us

an actual map

Saturday morning we had breakfast at Artemis Lakefront Cafe (crappy, slow service but delicious food-especially Allen’s biscuits and gravy!).

Then we headed over to check out Emerald Bay. It was about a 25 minute drive from the hotel but traffic wasn’t too terrible. Once you get close to the bay, the road gets super steep and winding and I get super nervous and nauseous.

We finally found a place to pull over and get out. Completely breathtaking! We scattered my brother’s ashes, most of which blew back on us -oops- and took some pictures then headed back down.

We hit the pool for some recovery drinks and suntanning then got dressed and went looking for dinner.

Here we are looking all fancy

We checked Friday’s Station on he top floor of Harrah’s (across the street from us). The least expensive steak on the menu was a 6oz filet for $70! What?!?! So then we walked back over to our hotel and checked the menu at the top floor restaurant of Harvey’s, 19 Kitchen and Bar. Same thing, just a wider selection.

We checked a couple other places but weren’t impressed so we headed to Stateline Brewery up the street. It’s a brewery, in a basement, and the average entree is around $25 so it’s more our style for sure! Allen tried the Acclimator IPA which was pretty delish! We ordered the artichoke dip. It was a big loaf of Sourdough bread with half the loaf hollowed out and filled with dip, then the top was brushed with super yummy garlic butter. Yum! So the artichoke dip was the entirety of our dinner! We had a couple more beers and called it a night.

Looking up the mountain, at the ski lift… No way could I have handled that! Allen said it’s about 9000ft elevation at the top… Yikes!

This morning we had a couple of breakfast burritos from a cafe up the street, spent our last $20 in chips, cashed in our tickets and checked out.

The obligatory huge chair vacation photo

On the way home I saw my first California grass fire (there was one in the campground in Oklahoma City but this was a lot bigger).

Overall, our Tahoe trip was really fun, and the best part was sharing the experience with my love. Now I’m just happy to be back home with Charlie! We missed her! And, a special thank you to Carmen for puppy-sitting!

Taking Off for the Weekend!

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Tahoe here we come!!!

San Francisco always seems to take its toll on Allen and the guys (and me, for sure).

This time around is especially difficult because even though the weather is nicer than it’s ever been while we were here, work is almost at a stand still. There’s some kind of lead paint issue that another company was called in to deal with, which in turn is holding up work on our end. Add this to the already existent fact that the city seems to drag its feet on everything Sutro-related.

borrowed from Wikipedia

Not staying really busy makes for long days (and short pay checks). No good for anyone. So I guess they all came to some sort of decision at work that they would take a long weekend. Just for reference, this is pretty much unheard of. When they are busy, they work ten hour days, six and sometimes seven days a week. So that’s what they are used to. So am I for the most part, but I love “weather days” (rain, snow, wind, etc. that make working on a 1,500ft broadcast tower too dangerous).

“hanging out”…

Allen’s view looking down!

Taking a break up top

Anyhow, one guy flew home for a high school reunion and another booked a cruise to Mexico. We were looking at Santa Cruz first, then heard that it’s not as cool as Monterey. So I went motel shopping. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zip. No rooms available, and the rates for even a Super 8 or a Days Inn were $400/night!!! Yikes! (By the way, we were looking last night, wanting to leave today, that’s just how our last minute lives are lived.)

getting the heck out of the city

the old Bay Bridge

So then we almost gave up. But then we looked at Tahoe. We found a room in a casino resort in South Lake Tahoe for less than Monterey, AND we are staying two nights! It’s going to be like a mini-vacay! We haven’t stayed in a motel in way over a decade, let alone a fancy “resort” (ever)! I’m super excited.

Charlie is going to stay with our neighbors and her buddy Samantha so she will have fun too.