Three days to cover nearly thirteen-hundred miles sounds like a pretty leisurely pace. And it is, even if you’re driving an RV and towing a (small) motorcycle trailer.

My routinely cranking 12-14 hour days are over. With an RV you don’t want to drive to the point of exhaustion, you want to arrive with some energy -and daylight in order to quickly and easily setup for the night and relax.

The drive to Rapid City, South Dakota isn’t bad, despite some slowdown areas of construction and the never-fun drive around major cities.

But it certainly is long, especially when you’re traveling solo.

To break up the monotony and keep the joints moving, I drink lots of water, and take a five or ten minute break every couple of hours. The water not only helps keep me hydrated, it helps remind me of the need to take those breaks. Yes, I am bringing a bathroom along, but it’s nowhere close to the driver’s seat.

There should be a sunrise like this (above) at the end of every long day of driving. And traveling in an RV means you can eat healthy meals. This is a “one panner” of sautéed shrimp and asparagus with sliced avocado and fresh tomato.

If you’re facing a drive through Illinois on Interstate 24, here’s a piece of advice: allow plenty of extra time. For some reason the state highway department has decided this would be a perfect time to cut one lane out several consecutive bridges. When the problems getting through Metropolis, Illinois, makes St. Louis at rush hour seem reasonable, something’s wrong.

Having traveled in hotels for more decades than most, I have some deeply ingrained habits. One is calling to guarantee the hotel/campground knows I might be late, but I will be there.

On Friday, I called Cedar Creek Resort outside Columbia, Missouri, to let them know the traffic had delayed me considerably longer than expected.

Glad I did, because they had me arriving on Saturday, not Friday. They were a total sellout - with the exception of one just-completed pull-through space (#500) in the back side of the campground.

Portions of this piece were written in space #500 of Cedar Creek. While the gravel may still be soft and the ground un-sodded, it beats parking overnight in a parking lot somewhere. And that sunset was postcard quality.

It’s not always necessary to call, but it is always courteous to let your hosts know you’re later than normal (most arrivals are mid-late afternoon). That call might keep you from finding out you don’t have a parking spot for the night.

That’s absolutely no fun.

As promised last week, I’m reading some real books during this trip. Normally books, music and entertainment come off the tablet or phone, but I’ve finally accept that spending less time on the screens at night helps me sleep better. So too, does the hydration. Maybe the doctors are on to something.

Don’t limit when traveling. If you allow yourself some time, you might discover something cool like the Rendezvous, (above) a reenactment of the spring gathering where trappers, indians, farmers and traders got together in the spring to barter the goods collected/constructed over the winter. Yes, that’s an entire buffalo hide (below).

Today, we all arrive to begin Motoschutzen 2021 tomorrow. It will be my longest interaction with industry folks in many months.

Can’t wait to see what’s out there in the Black Hills.

As always, we’ll keep you posted.

— Jim Shepherd