It’s a cold morning. Slept good as the trailer was cold, and I went to bed early as I was tired. It’s very foggy right now, likely from the cold front that is here, as it’s a bit cold. I went outside to get milk in the cooler and there’s so much fog I could not see the other side of the river bank. Also, had left a garbage bag outside, just hanging and some animal tore it open to get into the food leftovers. I really can’t do that from now on, need to secure garbage properly so animals don’t get into it. Today is the girls first day of school, hoping it goes well and is not a ton of work so it’s easy to manage during our trips. Having my coffee now, enjoying this already, looking out the window to the trees, with the fog in the background, it’s nice. This Bustello coffee is pretty good I have to say.
The girls had a good, and easy, first day of school. They got to it right away in the morning, and got whatever was online for them done. Bella had more stuff, things in her packet to color and write, and classes to setup, and a google meet around 11:30am which we did from the car, and she found out there are only 3 other kids doing virtual with her. Bia had really not much of anything, and when we tried to login to the Google Meet at 9am it didn’t work. Hoping it will work for her tomorrow.
We got the trailer ready to go as we woke up and were ready, without rushing or anything, and we were out of the campground around 10:30 I think. The drive was nice and easy for the most part. As we left the campground we crossed into Minnesota right away, and that area by the Mississippi River was really pretty, definitely an area to go back to. Then as we got into MN it was just corn fields and corn fields. We stopped at a rest stop around noon, stretched, had lunch, girls checked their school work again, I walked around a bit, they got Maggie out a bit, etc. It was about a 45 min stop and we were off again.
Our next stop was the Jolly Green Giant Statue, which is just a statue in honor of the company that makes canned corn and peas since it’s such a big part of the area. The statue is 55ft tall, and the kids liked the stop. From that point on, Bella started taking pictures for her stop motion movie, and she took like over 500 pics starting at the Giant, and from the road all the way to the campground in SD. The drive from that stop to the campground changed a bit as the wind picked up to over 12mph and was really pushing us around a few times when we had gusts hitting us. I could tell as I could feel the truck being pushed a bit, and the gas mileage was suffering as the wind was coming pushing us back as well. When it got a bit much, I slowed down a bit from 65mph to 60, then 55 and then 50 and it was all fine.
Once we crossed the SD border, Sioux Falls was right there and the KOA we were staying for the night was not much further ahead, right by the highway. We had a full hookup pull through site, so easy in, pretty level so quick to setup. We got setup, Carol started making dinner and I took the girls to the pool. Pool was cold, so Bia stayed in it for a bit, and Bella didn’t stay much and went back to the camper. After Bia was done, I helped Carol get setup to fry the fish she made outside and I ran to a store quick to get some local beers and fill up the truck. Got back and dinner was ready, it was a great dinner. Rice and lentils, with pan fried Tilapia (and lemon if you wanted to put on the fish, which we all had). We finished dinner and went for a walk around the street, girls biked and Carol and I walked. There was a Camping World right up here, so we just went there and walked around a bit.
On the way back we stopped at the campground playground for a bit, and then we went out for some ice cream into town. I found a “farm” ice cream place, so we went to that, which was actually in a strip mall rather than a farm, but was good nonetheless, and Carol got some fresh farm eggs. We drove back, got ready for bed, cleaned up the kitchen and went to sleep. Good day, and we are looking forward to not having much driving soon.
Link to the video of day 2 and 3 here: https://carolstefano.com/days-2-and-3-our-rv-road-trip-across-the-usa/