2011 Trip across the US
2012 Trip across the US
2014 Trip across the US
2015 Trip to Alaska
2015-16 Southwest Trip
2016 New England Trip
2016 - 17 Southwest Trip
2017 - 18 Trip to Pick Up a New Escape 21 Trailer & More
Thursday, August 23, 2018 - Pelican Lake Recreation Area, Watertown, SD, 254.6 Miles, 2,149.7 Miles for the Trip
I forgot to include the story of the "Swan" in last night's post, so here it is a day late. Anne (whose site is the furthest from the dock & bay) said "Look at the Swan!". We looked, and argued that it might be a goose, but in any case, I had to get a photo. I put on the 80 - 400 zoom lens and sneaked up on it for a photo. Discovered that it was neither; but a decoy. The pond scum on the bottom and chipped paint of the beak, as well as the neck joint kinda gave it away. You couldn't see any of that from the campsites, so I can't blame Anne for getting it wrong, but for both days we constantly said "Hey, the Swan is still there"!
Today's drive was a mix of secondary roads & interstate. We called yesterday afternoon to make reservations here at Pelican Lake, and started what was to become an interesting saga. First, the SD reservation website let me get 3/4 of the way through reservations for 2 sites, then froze. I gave up & called their 800 number and got a very busy & confused reservation specialist that proceeded to finish our booking, but did them for last night rather than tonight.
After we set up a group that had booked 8 sites for the weekend thought they had our sites in their booking. They were nice about it, but we called the reservation center to straighten it out, and it got even more interesting. They insisted that the person doing the booking told me 3 times the date the reservation was for (she didn't) and emailed me the confirmation (she didn't), and they insisted that I had to pay for last nights unused reservations, and had to make new ones for tonight. We did discover that even though the reservation was in my name & billed to my credit card, they emailed the reservation confirmation to Anne, who doesn't have data on her phone, so couldn't find it until we were set up & she was on my WiFi. I didn't want to make the folks that were staying for the weekend move their trailers tomorrow, so we took new sites two sites away, and was given the promise that Doris (the head of the reservation system) would call with a possible refund of our unused (and to my mind, un made) Wednesday reservations. My suggestion is that if you make reservations for a South Dakota state park, be very careful that you get what you expect!
In any case, we are now in sites 75 (Don & Anne) and 76 (me), an electric only site for $24.27 plus a $6.00 park entry fee. Clean bathrooms with showers a bit further away than they were from our previous sites 73 & 74.
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| The Goose Decoy | Site 75 | Site 76 |
Dinner was a variety of sausage sandwiches & a fried yellow squash.
Until Tomorrow.
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Last Update:
August 24, 2018