My Trails

I had forgotten how bad the smell is when you drive by a feed lot in Colorado and Nebraska. You would think that I would be somewhat used to the odor after living on a farm for several years, but nothing can compare to the nastiness of those cow corals. My cows never smelled like that! And why is it that it is a hot, dry day with he wind always blowing towards the road? OK, enough ranting.

I am tonight in the Badlands of South Dakota. I now have a vehicle license and drivers license from this great state of cheapness. It was pretty easy to meet the requirements to obtain a drivers license – just a few documents to prove who I am, a nights stay in a motel or campground (to make it look like you live here), an eye test, and twenty bucks, produces the original, official, plastic document. I thought I would get a temporary license and be mailed the original.

The lady helping me at the DMV kept apologizing that it was taking so long. I was shocked because It had only been a few minutes. My last visit to the DMV in Mesa was a wait of 90 minutes.

It kept reminding me of the wedding chapels in Las Vegas: There was a big neon sign outside that flashed “Drivers Licenses”, and everyone knows that we are “full time rv’ers” there to take advantage of SD laws, even the girl at the motel where I stayed said that some people come in and pay for a room just to get the receipt to prove their one night in town. They don’t even stay there!

I will be here for a few days. I’m hoping for a more casual exploration on my motorcycle than I encountered in Rocky Mountain NP. With the kids back in school and no free entrance fee, there should be less traffic and tourism. I will ride out early tomorrow and get a jump on the weather. It is still about 10 or 15 degrees warmer than normal and thunderstorms are likely in the afternoon.

Oh, Donna… I stopped in and said “Hi” to Becky. She was flattered that I read her blog and enjoys meeting people who know her through her writing. She is very nice and I would have liked to talk with her more, but she was busy at work and I elected not to distract her from that.

After here it will be to Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills, and then ever so slowly west. I like to keep moving but this van likes to slurp up liquid gold!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 5th, 2013 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.