Altoona, IA to Sioux Falls, SD, time to celebrate a bit

Friday, 8/26/11

Sioux Falls, SD

After another early start for us, 9:30, we headed out for Sioux Falls, SD, on Thursday.  Terri has been a bit nervous about going through the flooded areas along I29, so we decided to go a few extra miles and take I35 north to Albert Lea, MN and then head west on I90 to avoid the flooding.  Boy, it sure seemed like a long day getting here.  Parts of I90 were very rough.  At one point I almost pulled off to look for an alternate route.  We kept on going, though, and soon we were arriving here at Tower Campground.  Including a few stops for breaks and one for diesel, it took us about six hours and 325 miles to get here.  This is an interesting campground.  They have an "old" section and a "new" section.  We are in the "new" section.  This area was/is a mobile home park.  They're in the process of removing the mobile homes and converting the sites over for RV use.  The site we're in, #110, is not too bad.  It seems kinda private with the trees just outside our door.  There are a few campsites to the left of us, but we don't really see them.  Behind us are a couple of buildings and a mobile home.  We're here for two weeks.  Labor Day weekend snuck up on us.  We had planned on staying in a SD state park, but all the sites were reserved well in advance.  That's okay though. Wal Mart, DMV, and other stuff are real convenient to us, and I'm sure we'll be just fine here.  Except for some traffic noise from I29 and an occasional aircraft coming in for a landing at the airport, it's fairly peaceful here.

 

Today was a big day for us.  After much preparation and anxiety, we have now obtained our South Dakota drivers licenses.  Terri was very nervous about going through this process.  I was too, but I didn't let her know that I was because that would have made it even harder on her.  We checked and double and triple checked our paperwork before leaving.  We had our certified birth certificates, certified marriage certificate, w-2's, residency forms, and our VA drivers licenses.  We even took our vehicle registrations just in case we needed them.  We got through the whole process and are now official South Dakotans!

 

After that, we decided to make a run up to Madison, SD, to visit our mail forwarding service, MyDakotaAddress.com, and pick up our mail.  We also wanted to meet Terri Lund, the manager, but she had left for the day to go camping this weekend.  That's okay, though, as we'll be going back again next week.  We got our mail, drove around downtown, and got gas.  Then it was back to Sioux Falls and Wal Mart.  We picked up a few things and headed back to the campground.  Time to celebrate!!!

 

Both of us have been looking forward to this day for what seems like a long time.  We are finally South Dakotans.  We decided a nice steak dinner was appropriate.  I fired up my $7 grill and cooked a couple of nice ribeyes.

 

Steak, corn on the cob, and Amish macaroni salad -- what a great meal!!

We feel very blessed to have been able to get out of Virginia before the earthquake this past week and now Hurricane Irene.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to all who are affected by the hurricane.  Stay safe.