Day 6 - July 11th 2008 - Ridiculous Amounts of Driving Continued

As Mike alluded to in the previous post I tend to rise early and today was no exception. I arose a mere 3 hours after Mike parked the RV at the rest stop. 4 AM Central time is the equivalent of 5 AM on the East Coast. I used the restroom and prepared to leave. We pulled out of the rest stop around 4:20 AM and headed towards Mount Rushmore. During the drive I counted cars and had the 10th car pass me as Mike woke up at 5:30. I encouraged him to go back to sleep but he elected to keep me company while Kyle slumbered despite the enormous racket of the RV.

The drive was completely uneventful and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and tried to put as many miles as possible behind us. At 9:30 Kyle took over and drove us the rest of the way to our campground at Rushmore Shadows Resort, arriving around 12:30 PM (MDT). I took a brief nap from 9:45 AM Central Time to 9:40 AM Mountain Time. Waking up before I went to sleep was slightly disconcerting. Our RV park was quite nice and we settled in before deciding to head up to Mount Rushmore.

Mike drove us up the mountain because he felt more comfortable doing that then letting Kyle or I drive the rough terrain. As we climbed the mountain Mike was concerned because he didn't feel the RV was accelerating adequately and didn't sound quite right. After 12 miles of driving we arrived at the Mountain and got out. As we did we noticed a distinctly bad smell coming from the RV. We decided the RV must just be tired and went to look around. Mount Rushmore is pretty cool and coming all this way to see it was worth it. The size of the whole thing is overwhelming and imagining the creation of it and the fact that no worker died while making it is incredible.

After walking around we went back to the RV and Mike started her up and went to back out of the parking spot. He put it in reverse and was having trouble backing up when he realized that he had the parking brake on. At that moment it dawned on him that he had not removed the parking brake when we left the campground. That meant that we had driven 12 MILES UP A MOUNTAIN with the parking break on. The RV drove much better after removing the parking brake.

We proceeded to Custer National Park and drove the Wildlife loop. The pictures from that should be up in a photo album soon. Being stopped by Buffalo and Donkeys was a unique and incredible experience. The RV encountered some more brake problems while going through the Wild Life Loop. The right front side brakes overheated and we were forced to stop for a while to let them cool down. After that we managed to make it home without incident and as usual tucked in for bed early due to an incredibly long day that started at 4 AM.

By the Numbers:
499: Normal Miles driven.
18: Miles driven avoiding wild Buffalo.
12: Miles driven with the parking brake on.
11: Mike's crankiness level on a 10 point scale.
3.5: Hours Mike slept in a 35 hour period.
2: Incidents involving brakes on the RV.
1: Time Zone crossed.

Pictures