Badlands

Words cannot explain how beautiful and amazing The Badlands of South Dakota really are! The pictures speak volumes! Hope you enjoy the next three posts!

Take It Easy

As we motor on West across the United States, we are really racking up the

Camped out next to a cornfield in Indiana

kilometers. Typically, on a "driving day", we will clock 4 hours or so with some pit stops along the way. If we really want to make some progress we may drive 5 or 5.5 hours! Either way the driving can be absolutely exhausting and we have discovered that sometimes we just need to stop for a couple of nights and do nothing!!! Not even unload the motorcycle to take a run here or there.....just stop and have some rest time.

We don't usually plan our rest days, they just kind of happen! But we really do enjoy them. During our down time it gives us a chance to catch up on some exercise and some reading or research about places we want to visit. A lot of the parks we stay at have wonderful

Enjoying a good book

facilities and we do try to take full advantage. Some parks have fitness rooms and pools and Steve will usually try to visit for a workout. I have brought my fitness bands along and will just do a band workout on site. Sometimes we will go for a walk in the park or around the area. And I can't forget about some of the lovely bike rides we've taken, if traffic

Early morning ride
along Lake Michigan

permits.

Rest days also give us an opportunity to check on the trailer and make sure everything is top notch! So far all has been well! Checking the tire pressure, adding air, fixing the toaster, and tuning up our navigation system have been a few things that have needed attention. Steve also spent some time tightening everything up that has come loose over the last 5000 kilometers. Other than that Princess has been running like a charm!

During some down time in South Dakota we tried out a new appliance we had purchased for this journey. Our RV has a convection microwave but no oven. We decided to buy an Instant Pot that claims to have 9 appliances in 1! What we like about this is we can have home cooked meals prepared in short order which means we can stay well fed on long driving days, busy sightseeing days, OR relaxing rest days! Here is the recipe link to Instant Pot Coca Cola Ribs that I grabbed off the internet!  This time around we used beef ribs but next time I'd use pork. Pot to table in less than an

hour! Simply delicious!


Until the next time....