Thursday, July 26, 2018, Move to Rapid City, SD

We got up really early (for us - 6am) to stop by the Loaf 'n Jug where we could use our Kroger fuel points for discounted diesel. I think our daughter Kate had been putting her groceries on our card because I sure did not think we bought enough June points for a $0.40/gallon discount. Of course, that only applied to the first 35 gallons. The remainder of the fill-up was on our July points so that we averaged $2.999/gallon. I thought that was a pretty good start to the day especially when the parking lot cleared out just as we were ready to leave making our exit pretty uneventful. The car was not hooked up so I could maneuver in the tight station and I only needed to back up once.

We arrived at Cummins Rocky Mountain in Gillette, WY, about a minute early for our appointment. I was first in line at the service desk where I was told I was scheduled for tomorrow. I said "Nooooo! I was told to come in on Thursday." I guess the guy had a rough night because he thought it was Wednesday. I gave them all of the required filters and verified all of the work to be done. The mechanic drove our coach around to the service bay and we left to kill time.

We drove around, pretty much at random, and found the Rockpile Museum. It was free and we needed something to do - how serendipitous!

The giant donut under the museum sign was formed when mud oozed around a large tree. Later as the buried mud turned to stone and the tree was eroded away this remained.

You might ask how the museum got its name unless you looked outside the front door. The huge, unexplained pile of rocks had been used as a landmark for as long as people have been traveling through the area.

The museum had a large collection of early Americana including spurs, bridles and rifles as well as a display about the area's coal mining.

The techs at Cummins were finally finished with our baby around 2:00. We hit the road quite a bit later than usual, but our short drive of 148.6 miles (88,984.2 total) still put us into our site before dinner. I noticed on one long uphill climb the engine temperature did jump about 20 degrees, but it never became too worrisome.