Day 20: 8/18/09: De Smet, South Dakota

411 miles: camped in Salem, located in Southeast South Dakota.

Today was a good day! Woke up to cloudless skies for the first time in quite awhile. Zoey and I left Bismark about 7:30 this morning. We ran Interstate 94 east for about 100 miles, then turned south on US 281. What a wonderful road! Two lane, 65 mile speed limit, and almost no traffic. Plus, you get to see the real countryside. In general, I'm so impressed with the rural roads in the west. More people should use them.

Our goal was to reach De Smet, SD. For those of you not familiar, De Smet is the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the basis of the Little House on the Prairie series. As I mentioned before, I have relatives buried in the De Smet cemetery. Not knowing where to begin, I stopped at the local library. They called the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historical Society for me. What do you know. They have a record of Sipher burial plots in the cemetery. I show up and the they help me decipher (sorry) the map and show me where to look. The cemetery is about mile away. It took only 10 minutes of looking and I found the gravestones. There were 5 in all. Polley (it's spelled Polly in other records, but Polley on the stone) and 4 others. They might be her children or grandchildren. Polley Sipher is my Great Great Grandmother; born in 1825 and died in 1907. So for my grandchildren, Cam, Cody, and Chasen, that makes her their Great Great Great Great Grandmother, if I counted right. It was a neat experience finding the stones.

Then we took some more 2 lane highway and headed south on US 25, east on State 34, and south on US 81. Found a real nice campground just outside Salem, SD and got checked in by 5:00. We setup and made dinner. Canned spaghetti, another one of my specialties. :-) In the "I've see almost everything" department, a rig rolls in across the driveway from me with this outfit. I just had to check it out, so waltzed right over and made myself to home. This couple full times. That is their one and only home. But obviously, the neatest part is the way they transport their car.

The guy "camped" next to me came over to visit for an hour. He has a truck camper similiar to mine, but has it off the truck and setting on the ground. He has been living there in it for about 4 months. He lives in Minnesota, but works for a company laying oil pipeline here in South Dakota. He works 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week. His wife lives 8 hours away and comes to visit him on weekends. He works about 8 months a year, and gets laid off for the winter. He loves dogs, and has raised labs in the past, so he and Zoey hit it right off. I had a nice time visiting with him. We talked about kids, school sports (his kids are all grown up and moved on) and dogs. I guess it just points out that there are nice people everywhere.

OK, Wednesday Zoey and I are headed to Eldridge, Iowa to park in the driveway of longtime friends and former high school classmates Steve and Elizabeth (she was Jane in high school ) Randall.

See ya.........