The Second Big Road Trip to my NEW “Home”

Well, here I am, sitting in my new residence (a motel room) in Rapid City, South Dakota, composing this post for the blog. I’ll explain more about the “residence/motel room” in the next post.

In the last post, I explained that I had completed my research about where to move my residence to my best advantage as a wandering nomad – and that place was Rapid City, South Dakota. Obviously, since I’m here, I’m a bit behind in posting about this road trip and adventure this time. So, I’m going to do a quick catch up to bring you up to date.

I ended up with a window of time between September 25th and October 4th that I could make the pilgrimage to South Dakota. I mentioned in my last posting that I had acquired a new (to me) 2002 Ford Focus 5 door hatchback to replace the trusty Silver Shadow (Cadillac Seville STS). The new car is metallic gun metal gray, so I’m dubbing it the Gray Shadow. I set up my account with Americas-Mailboxes in Rapid City, SD where they provide me with a street address and a mailing address to operate and headquarter from. They took care of acquiring the SD registration and tags for the Gray Shadow and sent them to me. So, I went to Shippensburg, PA where I bought the car from private party (a pharmacist and entrepreneur and his wife – delightful folks), put the SD tags on the car and drove it back to Winchester. I ran it back and forth from the Winchester to Falls Church and Fairfax for about a week and then it was time to hit the road on my next big adventure.

So, I loaded the car up on September 23rd (a Thursday) and drove to Keyser, WV where my friend Carolyn and her mother live. I spent Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday morning in Keyser getting some client project work done, then hit the road about 2:30 PM on Saturday. The Gray Ghost handled perfectly. Even though it’s a manual transmission (5 speed), it took no time getting used to driving it – and once on the road and up to speed, I engaged the cruise control – and just sat back and enjoyed the drive. I felt very comfortable in this smaller car, though I could feel the weight difference in the drive and it’s not quite as comfortable as the Seville was.

That day I made it to the Indianapolis area, pulling in after dark. It was a long day and uneventful. Actually, it was exactly the same course I took on my earlier adventure to OR and CA. So, there is really nothing to report. The second day of the trip was – well, just about the same. I would have spent some time working in the morning, however, the motel I stayed at was not one of the nicer places I’ve stayed and decided instead of working in the morning and driving later in the day, I’d leave earlier in the morning, find a comfortable place to stop for the night earlier and get some work done in the evening. That worked perfect. As a matter of fact, I reached Atlantic, IA where I had stayed at a very nice America’s Best Value Motel on my last trip, so when I saw the sign, I made the instant decision that I had reached my destination for Day 2 of this trip. The motel was, as the last time, very nice, clean, comfortable, economical and convenient to haul in my recording gear. So, I set up shop for the night and did some work that evening and then worked in the room until about 10:45 AM the next morning, when I packed up to meet the 11 AM check out time.

I was in the Central Time zone in IA and so I had to begin adjusting my thinking and my body clock a little bit. But, stopping while it was still light was a good move. The room cost less for a considerably better room then the really run down, Days Inn that was operated by people who were from another country and culture. So I felt quite a bit more rested when I hit the road about 11:20 AM. I found a Subway down the road and enjoyed half a foot long sandwich and put the other half in my cooler for dinner that evening. Day 2 of the trip was Sunday, September 26th. Day 3, Monday I made it from Atlantic, IA to Rapid City, SD. The driving distance was about 560 miles and it took about 9 hours of actual drive time with gas/pit stops and the Subway food stop. As I approached Council Bluffs, IA and the Omaha, NE area, I veered north toward SD. This was my first venture into new territory. Now, IA is IA, generally flat with some rolling hills, mostly rural and mostly agriculture. And that held true to the SD border and Sioux Falls, SD.

Crossing into SD took me into a new state I’d never been to before. So, it was virgin territory for me – and the state that would soon become my new state of residence. I never in my life would have guessed that one day I’d call SD my home, but it was about to become just that. South Dakota was more flat territory, but climbed in elevation very slowly as I traveled very rapidly from Sioux Falls in the east to Rapid City in the west. I had the cruise control set at 80 mph most of the trip through SD. Most of the land was fairly flat until I was about halfway across the state, then I started experiencing some of the badlands regions. Harsh terrain, but it is absolutely beautiful. And when we sing of the “amber waves of grain” – I truly saw them. This was cattle country and farming country. During a period of boredom and not being able to find a public radio station I wanted to listen to, I switched to the AM band and found AM radio very alive and sounding very good out there in the middle of nowhere. I scanned the dial and must have heard 18 or 20 strong and excellent sounding radio stations with a diversity of formats including really vintage rock and roll and very vintage country music. I was in my own private “heaven.”

I rolled into Rapid City just about 7 PM Mountain Time, so my actual drive time from Atlantic, IA to Rapid City, SD was just under 9 hours and the mileage was just about 560 miles on the nose. I drove downtown to see where my new “street address” was going to be located and where I’d be going the next day to take care of the various bits of business I needed to accomplish. Then I set out to find my place of “residence” for the night. After checking a few places, I settled on a Motel 6 that was in very nice condition. The room is Spartan, but both very adequate and comfortable (and secure).

I had arrived on Day 3 to my new “home.” I was 1,670 miles from my old home of 26 years, Winchester, VA.

In the next posting, I’ll discuss my impressions of Rapid City and what it took to become a resident.

Enthusiastically,
Ed