Sept 8th

Hello again,

Our trip started out just great.  We went through an authentic town from 1880 and saw alot of memorabilia from the movie "Dances with Wolves".  We, also went through a scenic route through the Badlands Nat'l Park and saw some awesome scenery and some wildlife.  Every thing was going sooooo smooth.  We were about 10 miles from our hotel, it was only 4 pm and then all hell broke loose.  The van started to over heat, there was road construction all around us and no gas station.  The guy put our melted ice from the cooler in the radiator and that helped until we reach a station.  Then Jim put some coolant in but a short time later that wasn't working.  We were able to pull into a restaurant parking lot and saw that everything was leaking out.  We had to call roadside service to have our van towed to a Chrysler dealer in Rapid City and the tow truck driver took Jim to the airport to rent a car while our van is being fixed (we hope).  We called 4 different rental places before we found one that had anything left.  The nice thing about all of this is we now have a nice new big Chevy Suburban to drive around for the next two days.  All we have to do is pay for all the extra costs!

We finally arrived at our hotel at 8PM and checked into our suite that was supposed to have a separate bedroom.  But it didn't and they had no other rooms available so Kim, Wendy, Jim and I have to share 2 beds in one room.  As we get older we all like our privacy when sleeping!

Oh well, tomorrow is another day and more sight seeing is planned.

Sorry, no pictures yet but we are working on it.

Bonnie