NO ROOM AT THE INN

Sorry I did not write last night but it was 1am before we got in bed. If you will notice my caption says "No room at the Inn" We spent Thursday night in Kadoka and left bright and early on Friday morning. We went to Wall Drug, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. That was going to be our longest driving day. All these places were great to see and I will tell you more when I get home and I have pictures, of course. Poor Donna ended up driving about 600 miles Friday.

Afterward we started on our way to Omaha and planned to spend the night in Chamberlain because that was part way. We had dinner and started looking for a motel as we usually did. We had never had a problem. We didn't want to go all the way to Omaha because we would not get there until around 3am. Chamberlain had no vacancies anywhere. Well, like my mother used to say "there was a fly in the ointment". (Meaning things were going wrong). What we did not realize there was this huge motorcycle rally going on in Sturgis plus the Laura Ingalls Wilder pageants going on in Walnut Grove, De Smet and Spring Valley. We knew about the pageants which draw hundreds of people but we did not know that there were going to be thousands of bikers. We called all the 800 numbers for all the hotel chains. There was not a vacancy anywhere till you got to Omaha. We saw a rest stop not too far up the road and if we couldn't find a room somewhere we would have slept in the car. Getting cold was not a problem. By this time it was getting near 11pm our time in the midwest. Donna said she was going to call Laif to rescue us. I said right--what can he do to help us when he is in Denver. Well, it turns out that his daughter, Laura, has lived in this area for quite a few years. Between Laura knowing the area and the miracle of the Internet, she found us a room in Canistota which put us a lot closer to Omaha. The motel was old and it was what we used to call cabins years ago. It was very clean and the bed was very comfortable. Donna and I had to share a bed. It had everything but the Internet. It just happened to be the handicapped unit so it just had a shower and the water was really cool. I guess they are saving energy. I really needed a shower so Donna was listening to me holler about the water. She said I was so funny. Also there was a warning about lead in the pipes but I brushed my teeth anyway.

The really funny part is that we didn't check in. Laif said Cabin 9 would be unlocked and just leave $50 in the refrigerator. I left a nice note thanking them for the room and said we really appreciated how clean the room was.

Thanks Laura and Laif, you saved us from sleeping at the rest stop which was all that was left.