Heading East from Deadwood

Yesterday we had a long day of driving. We hung around in Deadwood an extra day waiting for a package in the mail. I had bought a Pressure Pro tire monitoring system when we started traveling that monitors the pressure in each of my 14 tires. The trailer came with cheap Chinese made tires that are known to blow out. Unfortunately, the American made tires don’t have a much better reputation, so for now I’m sticking with the Chinese tires. I couldn’t get the Pressure Pro system to work consistently. I suspected I had a bad monitor. They said they hadn’t had a bad monitor in several years. Turns out I was right, so they sent me a new one.
We left Deadwood at about 9:00, stopped at a Subway for lunch by Wall Drug, stopped in Wal Mart in Mitchell, and arrived at Salem, SD at around 5:00. The Pressure Pro system worked perfectly. Now I don’t have to be stressed about having a tire blow out on the trailer and me going down the road not knowing that I’ve lost a tire. If this happens, an alarm will sound and I can pull over and put on the spare tire. The good news is that the Pressure Pro monitor costs only $250. The bad news is that you have to put a sensor on each tire, and each sensor costs $50.

A couple of stories that happened to us while I was still working for the State of Ohio, but living in the trailer.

1) When we are at a campground, we hook up to water so we can shower, flush the toilet, etc. When traveling I can put water in a water tank in the trailer if I want in case we spend the night without water hookup (like a Wal Mart parking lot). I didn’t bother putting water in the tank because we always planned on spending the night in a campground, and I didn’t want to carry that extra weight of the water in the tank. I told my mother this, and she said you should always carry some water in the tank in case you have to use the bathroom on the road. I hadn’t had any bathroom emergencies in years, so no water in the tank.

We were taking a vacation to Myrtle Beach in May, and on the way down I kept seeing signs for boiled peanuts. I had never tried them before and was curious. We stopped at a truck stop on the way down, and they happened to have some for sale. I tried them and thought they were pretty good, so I had quite a few. Then we hit a traffic jam. I was bored sitting in traffic, so I had a few more. Turns out, Mom was right. You should always have had some water in the tank, especially if your going to eat truck stop boiled peanuts.

2) We were staying in a campground in Bluffton, Ohio while I was working in the area. They had a pond that Roxy could swim in, so I took her for a swim. Everyone was very friendly at the campground and would wave and stop to talk with you while passing by. Roxy was done with her swim so we were walking back to the trailer by the pond. There was a couple and their 2 young kids in a paddle boat in the pond coming toward me as I walked to my trailer. There was a high bush on the bank of the pond between us. I wanted to be friendly like everyone else in the park, so I stood by the bush waiting for them to come into view so I could wave to them and say hi. As they came into view, I noticed the woman was nursing the one child, and when she saw me she quickly put her boob back in her bathing suit top. As I walked bach to the trailer, I thought to myself, instead of coming off looking like a friendly fellow camper, now I look like a pervert that was lurking behind a bush trying to get of glimpse of that woman’s boob.