Wall, SD

Thursday - A long-ish travel day from Billings, MT, to what’s known as Nomads View about 6 miles south of Wall, SD. At 92°F, it’s pretty hot so the generator got used today. At around 7:30, we turned off the generator and changed the A/C to fan only to circulate air. 

We had stayed at this location last year so we knew how to get here. It’s a pretty scenic and popular location but the high temperatures probably discouraged some. 

Tomorrow is a shorter day to a state park near Sioux Falls, SD. Around 300 miles according to Google. 

Rufus Landing

Saturday - Today is a windy day and there are a lot of people here taking advantage of it. 

When we arrived here, there were maybe ten RVs here with no one really around us. Not the case now. It is pretty entertaining watching all the activity on the river. 

The gusts are supposedly over 40mph. There are a wide variety of floating toys out here from kayaks to these wind powered boards with underwater foils. All are very fast.

The batteries were at 65% this morning and I really don’t want to run the generator with all the people around. I turned off most thing except for the 12V chest fridge/freezer to recharge the batteries. 

By evening, we were at 89%. Enough to get through the night. A couple of videos showing some of the river activities. The last is a launch and landing. 

Rufus, OR - Boondocking

Saturday - We are staying at the boondocking location in Rufus, OR, for another day. It is pretty nice here with some windsurfer activity in the Columbia River including some that look like hydrofoils. The main part of the board is about 20" above the water. Kind of cool. 

This afternoon, we visited the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles, OR. It was a nice museum with most of the emphasis on the Lewis & Clark expedition and the building of the dams. There is a fair amount of shipping going on and I hadn’t known about all the canals and locks.

As we were leaving, they were setting up for a wedding so it was starting to get a bit crowded. Speaking of crowds, this boondocking area is getting busy with all the people playing on the water. 

By this morning, our batteries were down to 45%. I think the StarLink may draw almost as much power as the refrigerator. We ran the generator for 3 hours this morning to get it back to 80%. The solar barely kept up through the middle of the day. 

Sunday - A very quiet day. Most of the people didn’t stay the night. Maybe because it was pretty windy. I adjusted the pressure in two of the rear tires. The 12V air compressor takes a long time with the RV tires. I saw a Dewalt compressor that uses the 20V batteries but it is hard to find. I kept checking at all of the Home Depot and Lowe’s but only found one in a demolished box (no discount offered). 

This morning, there was only one wind surfer on the water. Maybe it’s not windy enough today. The CoE park we are headed to this afternoon says that their water needs to be boiled before drinking. So we are looking at getting some water before arriving. The Sinclair gas station wants $5/10 gal for water. We have essentially four days of dry camping ahead of us so it may be worth it. 

Our new spot at the CoE park near the mouth of the John Day River. Pretty nice and we are sheltered from the wind.