Stranded in Huron, S.D.

My Mom’s excitement for this week was to watch the building movers dismantle and move the building beside her - it left for Arcola, Sk. this morning. They were just jackhammering the foundation and raising it up for moving when we were there Thursday night.

We are presently “stranded” in Huron, South Dakota. We stayed over night in Redfield, S.D. and were just on the road for an hour. We stopped at a gas station in Huron to get diesel, and when John tried to start the truck up, it would not start. Rats. We believe it is the starter (the second one in 6 months). We bought this 1997 GMC diesel in May to pull our fifth wheel trailer which we have stored down south. We had taken the truck down to Sandpoint Idaho this June and the first starter went down there! Anyway, the Good Lord provided a very nice tow truck driver to tow the truck to a service station and have it inside to prevent any theft or damage until tomorrow morning. Nobody is working on Sunday of course. Also, we were able to get a deal on a motel room so we are thankful for that. Not happy to be delayed at least one full day on our trip, but it is VERY windy outside and perhaps we are just not supposed to be out on the road!?! At least we are not short on time to get there. Have to be at Sulphur, LA, to pick up our trailer by the 31st and at Newton by Nov. 3rd. We are looking forward to taking a drive down to where we worked last year and see what damage this year’s hurricane have done…

It is presently pheasant hunting season down here, and obviously pheasant hunting is VERY big in this area. The motel “hunter’s special” appears to be $99.99, which is way over our budget for accommodation! Thankfully this Dakota Inn saw fit to find us a room for $47.00!! Unfortunately, we did not foresee the Canadian dollar falling through the floor and did not avail ourselves of the opportunity to open a U.S. bank account at our bank as was suggested to us about 4 months ago, when Canadian money was at par. Of course, we are booting ourselves now!! Oh well, that’s life…

We ended up with a motel in Redfield for $38.00 (when all the others were the hunter’s special rate) but it didn’t have internet. I wasn’t prepared to pay an extra $60.00 per night for internet!! The room was very nice and the telephone worked, so I phoned home with our card instead of e-mailing.

It is sure windy here today – gusts up to 60 mph. I’m sure the hunters aren’t very happy about that either. We are observing that the hunters here are not very considerate with their dogs. Every truck has one or two big dogs and the hunters don’t pick up after them when they dump. At this motel, they allow dogs in the room stating they have to be kenneled when their owners are out. The room cleaner said that on the second floor, they don’t even bring their dogs down to have them crap. There are big dumps right on the walkways outside the motel room. And she said the other day, one of the dogs on the top level lifted his leg against the railing when she was walking below, and she got all wet. Can you imagine???

We saw on TV that it is 81 at Houston. Sure wish we were down there already!!!