The Great Plains

Waverley turned out to be a good stop over. Having spotted two quilt shops in town on Friday night decided to explore them first thing on Saturday morning, the first one was having a charity sewing morning making pink quilts for the Breast Cancer Charity, the second had a huge selection of fabrics mostly in autumn colours, and the samples were all Halloween inspired. I found a wonderful book on appliqué patterns “Prairie Flowers”. In the meantime Dave had spotted yet another across the street, so that had to be checked out as well. It was even bigger and covered all kinds of sewing; I couldn’t resist a couple of small Christmas kits. The next day we explored Cedar Falls, a larger town but nothing much happening except a freight train we had to wait for at a crossing, it took 12 minutes to pass by.

On Monday we head off west again, and at Garner turn north to Forest City. Played our new purchase on the journey, Gretchen Wilson, Just here to Party, seemed appropriate. Found Winnebago Industries and met with Gary Gernetzke, discussed collection of the RV and agreed on 23^rd October. It may be ready earlier but until the funds are transferred they cannot release the paperwork. We finished the meeting just in time to join the factory tour, a very informative film followed by a bus tour of the factory with visits into the different workshops. “Big Bertha” is a building where the internals of the RV’s are fitted and the “Body shop” where the sides and roofs are put on AFTER all the internals are finished. Each “coach” had its own work sheets with specific customer options, and the owner’s manual is then printed from this so that only the options on that coach are explained in the manual. While in the gift shop purchasing our Winnebago mugs, I noticed a leaflet for another quilt shop! And the lady in the gift shop says there is yet another quilt shop in town. Visited the shops and bought some fabric for a patch from the “Prairie Flowers”, Dave says he is all quilted out! Headed back to Garner to stay in the family motel there and to check out Hancock County Court House where we will arrange for our transit plates later in the month. Transit plates are what we have to put on the RV to drive it from Iowa to South Dakota where we shall register and title it and obtain our permanent plates.

The next day we went to the Winnebago Surplus Store, as recommended by the Winnebago Tour Guide, they sell anything and everything, from shelf pegs 2 for 1 cent, to electric sofas! We are sure they have something we need but will have to wait until we have the RV. So out onto the road again and west on highway 9, turned left on a detour to Okoboji and came across ‘MotorIoway 1000’ a rally of old cars and trucks touring the Iowa lakes, which was why we had come this way. The vehicles were amazing, Studebakers, Impalas, Oldsmobiles and a 1950 MG YA saloon built in Abingdon! Spent some time talking to the owners and taking pictures, they were going to cruise the strip that evening but unfortunately we had plans to move further on. The weather is really hot but it is due to break soon and the farmers are out in force trying to get their Soya beans in before the thunderstorms, it seems every few miles there is a dust stom in the fields concealing one or two or even three combines. Once we arrived in Sioux Falls finding a motel was not a problem but finding a fairly cheap one was. However, all was not lost as when we did find motel 6 it was across the road from Traveland a RV dealer and accessory shop, we bought a water hose and pressure regulator, we have just enough room in the boot.

We were really excited to finally arrive in Madison, South Dakota. Not your usual tourist destination, but it is the home of ‘My Dakota Address’ the company we have engaged to forward our mail and help with the title and registration of the RV. We met with Teri Lund who we had been corresponding with by email and completed the forms so that she can receive our mail. She took us to the County Court House to collect driving licence manuals, we shall have to swat up for our tests next week. She then showed us where the First Madison Insurance office was so that we could introduce ourselves to Deb. We agreed to meet her again after we have our South Dakota driving licenses to complete the RV insurance. After finding a motel we went into town for a beer and supper and met some great people playing darts! We got chatting with Dudley and Norma first then after supper we met Dick and Sue, Bob and Karen, and Geoff and Yvonne, a fun bunch who invited us to join them for dinner on Friday night. As we had a couple of days to kill waiting to take the driving test we decide to take a trip back to Sioux Falls in search of bicycles, we have looked in specialist cycle shops but they only seem to sell mega expensive ones so we tried Wal-Mart again and found a great deal but they only had one built up. We paid a deposit and they put it away for us to collect later and this means that they will build up another one for show, so hopefully we shall be able to take both when we return with the RV. We returned to Traveland who were really helpful again and agreed to put the bike rack away for us to collect later and they didn’t even want a deposit. Later that evening Dudley and Norma collected us and took us to a restaurant on the shore of Lake Madison for supper and another darts game. We had a really great evening, the girls against the boys, I am not sure who won, the games or the side bets!

Tuesday 10^th October D-Day (Driving test day). We got up early for the first time in ages and went into town to meet Terri at My Dakota Address. She took us over to the court house test centre, at first it seemed to be going OK then the bomb shell, the clerk told us we were not eligible for state driving licenses, she said that unless we were applying for US residency we could not apply for state licences. We were sure we had done our homework and couldn’t believe we had missed something. Terri had also checked state requirements and went back to discuss this with the clerk but to no avail. We returned to her office and she telephoned the state office driving section and a lady there confirmed it was her understanding that as long as we had valid visas we could have a licence for the term of our visas. So back to the test centre and another discussion with the clerk and she agreed to telephone her contact at the state driving office, after 3 telephone calls and about 45 minutes it was confirmed we could have licences. Eureka and even better she processed the applications and produced the plastic cards without us even having to drive the car. Excellent now we can take them to Deb at First Madison Insurance to finalise the RV policy, she was just as helpful as Terri and we had our policy to take away as well. So now we can set off on our trip to the Black Hills………..