As the coronavirus restrictions continue, I found a job at a private campground in Custer SD. They wanted me right away even though the place doesn’t officially open until mid-May. So, we did a little route planning, called a few RV parks along the way and departed NCBC Gulfport on a mild Friday morning.

First stop was in the boot heel of Missouri after a fairly long driving day, about half of it on secondary roads. All things considered it was a decent drive with no close calls and no mechanical problems. We got to the park late in the afternoon, filled out the after hours registration and headed for our site. Just hooked up electric for the residential frig. Had a quick supper and watched a little TV before hitting the sack.

Off again the next morning for the other side of Missouri. This time we stopped just before Kansas City, about mid afternoon. Jean had time to check out the Amish country store while I unhitched to fill up with cheap diesel down a winding country road. So far, so good. The highways were mostly empty and we were making good time.

Somewhere along the line, I realized I’d forgotten about an Amazon webinar that I needed to attend for my next job. We discussed staying for several days at our next stop so I could do that where I had reliable Wi-Fi, then decided to press on to Rapid City instead.

The next day we headed off to our next stop just outside Mitchell SD. This was probably my best driving day of the trip. I picked up a great tail wind on I-29 and at one point the truck display read 14.0 mpg. We stopped at a Subway for sandwiches just before checking in to the next campground. This time I also hooked up water so we could take showers. The next morning we even unhitched to backtrack a few miles and pick up a few necessities at the local WalMart. After restocking, we hit the interstate again for what should have been our next to last leg.

It was very windy again, but this time it was a crosswind. I thought I saw something funny with one of my slide toppers but since it wasn’t billowing out, just kept driving. We got into Rapid City SD about 2 PM, pulled into an RV park where I’d previously stayed and found a sign on the door that they’d be back in 2 hours. I found a nearby electric box and plugged in for the frig after calling the office number and leaving a message. Well, about 3:30 someone showed up and told me that we could not stay there for a night because of the coronavirus. Nothing else was open nearby so we called Custer and left a voice mail that we were on our way a little earlier than expected. We arrived while it was still daylight but the owners hadn’t checked the voicemail so they were a little surprised. We picked a spot for the night and settled in for a well-deserved rest. That was close to 1800 miles in 4 days.

Now we just have to survive some very low temps in the next week, then change to our permanent site for the season once the water gets turned on. The campground looks really nice but the deer are still wandering through like they own it. I imagine one of my jobs in the near future will be picking up all their droppings. Never a dull moment as a workamper!

Oh, that slide topper that looked a little off on the last leg of the trip? The wind did a real number on it. One end of the fabric is sewed around a plastic rod, which slides into a channel on the RV. Well, the wind undid most of the stitching. The only things that kept it from flying free were a couple of screws in the channel holding the ends of the plastic rod. I now get to remove that topper completely to make repairs, then reattach. Lucky me.