July 23, Day 8: Wall South Dakota

• Miles today:  102
• Miles Total:  1654
• Weather:   70's and partly cloudy in Black Hills. 92F in Wall SD.
• Roads:   One lane and 45mph several times from Rapid City and Wall.
• Today's Theme Song:   "Back In Black" by AC/DC
• Lesson:  Confirmed!  Run the generator and coach A/C.

We decided to skip the planned excursion up to Lead and Deadwood so we could get to the campground in Wall earlier.  It's time to catch up on laundry.  This gave us a much shorter mileage day and a more leisurely pace for the Black Hills attractions we couldn't miss.

Don has been through South Dakota several times, but never to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is very close to where we camped last night. 

 

 

If you don't know the story behind the project, check out the link.  It is much more than a giant statue (the largest in the world) or a native-american memorial.  It is a multi-generation artistic labor of love that has been ongoing for nearly 60 years, and will likely take another 60 years to complete.  Work is slow because of the sheer magnitude of the project, and the fact that it relies solely on private contributions and donations for every aspect of funding.  They have turned down huge government money several times, stating that it would muddy the humanitarian mission of the project if taxpayers were compelled to pay for it, and that if the project is worthy of support, it must be supported by those individuals and organizations who will benefit from it.

 

We found our first perk for driving a huge RV to a national monument when we got to Mount Rushmore.  The annual pass doesn't pay for parking there (neither does plastic) but $11 cash allowed us to skip the search in the parking garage and get a golf-cart escort to dedicated RV parking, quite close to the entrance.

The kids ate buffalo burgers and we hurried outside for photos before it threatened rain.  No rain fell and it started to clear, so Don and Rodger ventured around the path that gets much closer to the carvings. 

 

 

 

 

There were about 50x the people at Mt. Rushmore than at Crazy Horse.  You have to do both if you are in the area (only about 20 minutes apart) but I would have to say that Crazy Horse was the more enjoyable and fulfilling experience, even though (or maybe because) Mt. Rushmore was more polished and refined while Crazy Horse Monument seemed to connect more with the visitors.

 

Now we are at the campground in Wall.  Rachael gets some alone-time with her laptop in the RV, while Teresa does that laundry and Rodger inspects the pool and I type this. 

 

We'll go to the famous Wall Drug later to see if it imprints on the kids' minds like it did mine when I passed through here for the first time with my parents when I was 13.

 

Today's lesson is from yesterday's breakdown and this morning's refuel...  The coach A/C stopped working yesterday due to a generator fault.  It was 99F outside so we had to keep the inside cool enough somehow.  We used the air conditioner for the cab, attached to the drive motor.  We had heard that this method was much less fuel efficient than just running the auxilliary generator for the coach and the coach a/c, so that is what we had been doing up to now.  We now have solid numbers to show that our "average" fuel efficiency without any A/C is about 8.0-8.5mpg and with the generator running and the coach a/c about 7.0-7.5mpg.  When running the cab a/c (when the generator was malfunctioning) we went down to about 6.0mpg (maybe even less) when I factor the amount of fuel we used during the time the generator was kaput.