Never make a misteak you can’t cowmpownd

First Officer’s Log: 20-15-07-04

"Never make a misteak you can't cowmpownd." 

Yesterday was a morning of many compounded mistakes.  Yesterday was a very stressful day.  Yesterday was not fun.  The only saving grace was that the captain didn’t climb all over my ass and explain in great detail what a totally incompetent jerk I was.  She simply said, “Hey, let’s just do what we have to do to get back on the road again.”  And that’s why she’s the boss and I’m the staff.

To recap the morning let’s start with the full understanding that yesterday was to be a long day with 327 miles scheduled between Belle Fourche ("Beautiful Fork" in the river) and Mitchell, South Dakota.  That’s a very full day in a RV.  So, did we get an early start?  Nooooooooo.  (Misteak 1) I had us hang around Belle Fourche until 8AM waiting for the Chamber of Commerce to open so I could get a couple of those &^%$# pressed pennies.  The result of that wait was that at 8AM we were standing outside the CoC reading the sign “The Town of Belle Fourche is closed for the 4^th of July weekend.”  And it was.  The whole freaking town,

So we left Belle Fourche an hour later than we should have.  Then as we drove across Rt. 90 we started seeing signs for Wall Drug, a place we had visited way back when, but long before I started collecting those &^%$# pressed pennies.  I begged the captain to let me stop for a minimal time just to run in and press a couple (Misteak 2), and although she really didn’t want to take the time, she agreed.  (Her Misteak.)

This is when I found out Wall Drug hates RV’s.  Their parking signage sucks.  The only parking signs we saw specifically forbade big trucks and RV’s.  I later found that there is an RV lot way in the back, but there are no directional signs to get you there.  (Misteak 3)

We passed by all the car lots and found ourselves in a residential area.  If I had turned right everything would have been OK, but I turned left.  (Misteak 4) I planned to do a go around the block to return to Wall Drug but each street seemed smaller that the next so I just kept driving looking for a big enough area for me to turn the rig around.  (Misteak 5)  I figured there would be a small town somewhere that had 80 feet of spare space.  (Mistake 6).  Ten miles down that rural road it turned to dirt.  That’s when real panic set in.  We got out the atlas and found that there were no small towns anywhere in our immediate future.  

The BIB kept telling us to “turn left onto the dirt road”, and “turn right onto the dirt road”, but I refused.  She may think a 40 foot rig can handle small dirt roads with overhanging trees, but I don’t and won’t.

We finally came to a fork where the road to the right was actually a long driveway into a ranch.  I guess the rancher got tire of lost city-slickers driving up to his door asking to turn around in one of his pastures because he had bladed a turn around half circle in the apex of the “T”!  The only problem was that I’m sure he never figured a rig our size would need it because it sure wasn’t big enough for us.  

Our only alternatives were: 1. Try to make the turn around as is. 2. Take the car off the trailer, disconnect the trailer, and try to make the turn around with the luxury of being able to back up if needed, 3. Keep going on that dirt road looking for small-town never-never land, or a bigger empty piece of SD.

We chose option 1.  Cheryl drove the coach while I walked beside her directing.  She was magnificent!  Whatever money she spent on that RV driving course was recovered in that small space.  I had her swing far to the left right up against soft sand and then cut the wheels all the way into a hard right.  I walked her all the way around the turn right up to a foot deep drop off where the road suddenly got soft.  Feeling the rig start to bog down she gunned it and plowed right on through the soft sand.  We had made it! 

We drove back to Wall Drug.  I still didn’t see any RV parking signs other than one directing us into a dirt area that was crammed full of rigs and had no room for us.  So I kept going.  Besides, I don’t think I want any &^%$# Wall Drug pennies!

At this point we needed gas and there was a CONOCO station at the next exit.  But that section of I-90 was under construction and I missed the exit!  We had about 60 miles of gas left, and I wasn’t sure where the next miserable small SD town might be, so I decide to take the next exit and use it for a turn-around as I could CLEARLY see it had an on-ramp on the other side of the road.  (That was Misteak 7).  

Yes, there was an on ramp but no access to it!  And yes, there actually was a turn-around, but it was small, illegal,  unmarked, and I missed it.  (Misteak 8.)  Now we were on another small SD rural road going away from everywhere we wanted to be.  I was determined to not repeat our first rural country trek, so when we came to a small steak house on the outskirts of a small town I did an illegal turn into and out of their parking lot.

We did get back to the interstate, and I did get back to the CONOCO station, and we did get all the gas we needed, and that put us back on the road going east at least three hours behind any kind of normal schedule.

And that was my morning.

BTW:  The KOA we are in is infested with ticks, and I am not a happy camper.

End First Officer’s Log

Captain’s Log: The FO said it all!

Remembering our mission we trek on:

These are the Voyages of the Starship Arrowstar, to go where no Class A has gone before.  
Mission accomplished Stardate: 20-15-07-03