It's a wonderful day back at the park, as we are ready to take to our next disc golf course!
Welcome to Powerhouse Alley, located at Oahe Downstream State Recreation Area just outside Fort Pierre, South Dakota. As with most of the state parks, there is an entrance fee required, whether by a one-day or annual pass. This is an easier course that is good for beginners, but the par number of throws is designed for the player with the strong arm. The course is designed for the player to be able to play the front or back 9 and easily head out for something else, or to play all 18 holes at once. The course is well marked with different tees to suit your difficulty rating, as well as an online map to help guide your way. Be careful of traffic driving around while you play.
We spent a morning playing the front 9. This time, we had the pup with us, and his disc of choice was from our "Can Slam" set that he chased while we played with our starter pack, and not once did he try to pick up our discs. Once again, the handicap was in play, and with such a long course, it made things relatively even. The score ended up as such:
Front 9: His holes: 2 Halved: 7 Her holes: 0
Course Record: Him 1 - 1 Her Holes Record: Him 3 - 3 Her
It was a fairly even game without too much break in number of throws, and only a couple times were the discs "brought out" from the rough with even throw penalty so nothing was lost. On the seventh "green", she was nearly able to pull within one after some difficulty with which goal was to be used, but a successful long putt attempt by him was able to halve the hole. A double-or-nothing was offered on the ninth hole to even up the game, but with it being halved, no change was made. Everything is all even-steven, so who will break the deadlock?
Back 9: His holes: 0 Halved: 7 Her holes: 2
Course Record: Him 1 - 2 Her Holes Record: Him 3 - 5 Her
The next morning was a great day for her on the somewhat more challenging back 9, with plenty more hazards. He tried to hold on as best he could, including long putts to halve holes, but in the end it wasn't enough, as she took the final two targets to seal the win and even up the course as a whole. She remains in the lead overall, with a two hole edge.
Be sure to stay tuned for the next time we Follow our Internal Compass to another disc golf course, and see what happens.
Looking to take a drive on the wild side? Here's one possibility that's out there.
Nestled in Southwestern Missouri outside the small town of Eagle Rock near the Arkansas border lies Eureka Springs Safari Park. This drive through menagerie is closely associated with the Promised Land Zoo, found about an hour to the east in Branson, Missouri. Family operated since 1992, the park holds several dozen different species of wild animals, both endangered and widely found, across over a hundred acres of land. In addition to the safari experience, whether self-guided or with a tour representative, a small petting zoo with several more species of animals may be found for all ages to visit.
As you enter the property, you are greeted at a building filled with the stench of excrement from the several dozen guinea pigs corralled in the back. This is a sign of things to come. After paying what is a complete rip-off of a price for what is offered and its means, the journey begins. Emus and antelopes begin to walk to your window begging for the overpriced pellets upsold at the door, tapping at the windows of the "cheapskates" as if the staff wants patrons to fulfill the animals' nutritional needs. In some cases of looking at the animals, you can tell that may be the expectation. As you drive along, Bible verses adorn the property, which almost seem to be a distraction from the lack of care for the grounds the staff has. Once the course is complete, if you're lucky to find any parking, the petting zoo is through the back of the original building, but good luck bringing a service animal if you require one, as they are prohibited.
At the end of the day, the experience at Eureka Springs Safari Park was fairly underwhelming. The hour drive from Branson was not worth the trip. In fact, it is our sincere hope that what we saw is not a sign of what is found at Promised Land Zoo, which was not visited, although we saw transporter trucks every now and then along the safari course. There are plenty of city zoos and safari drives across North America that offer a much more enjoyable family experience, and although what was seen at Eureka Springs wasn't the worst thing in the world, it is not a place where we would return without significant improvements.
So the next time your Internal Compass calls you to the wild animals, there's no shame in following it, but be careful where you seek what you wish to find.
Looking for a bowl of ramen? Have we the place for you!
Nestled within Downtown Rapid City, South Dakota is Bokujo Ramen. Bokujo is owned by celebrity chef and Food Network star Justin Warner, along with his lady Brooke Sweeten, and has been open since March of 2021. Bokujo offers a number of ramen choices made to order, along with an assortment of other Asian offerings, using locally sourced ingredients during their brunch and dinner serving times Tuesday through Saturday. Patrons are able to dine in, as well as place a "to-go" order online or in person, with an event room for large gatherings and karaoke.
Our visit took place at the tail end of a weekday brunch service, with her making a quick to-go order while he was circling the downtown area for parking options. The atmosphere was Japanese inspired with shirts and other memorabilia adorning the walls. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the menu offerings are friendly towards those with peanut and shellfish allergies, as confirmed by the staff. The chef recommended a good choice based on our likes, and was happy to customize based on the same. Along with a few Oko buns, a Chilled Bison Shoyu and Bacon Mazemen were an excellent choice. The restaurant includes assembly instructions with each of their to-go orders to keep the integrity of the ingredients while ensuring best experience.
Overall, Bokujo has some of the best tasting food we have had thus far. The menu is a little pricey as is expected with most celebrity chef restaurants, but is well worth the cost at this location. Portions were of a sizable amount that you would expect for the price, even without the name notoriety. Although celebrity restaurants are usually reserved for once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and one which should definitely be experienced, Bokujo makes for a great location for a business lunch or dinner. The owners have also opened a second place around the corner, BB's Natural Wine Bar.
So next time your Internal Compass takes you to Rapid City, be sure to check out Bokujo for a great food experience.
Trip ten saw several parks visited within the same trip. The first of these was Angostura State Recreation Area outside of Hot Springs, South Dakota. This state park is located on Angostura Lake in the southwestern part of the state just off US Routes 18 and 385.
Grounds: If you're looking for a way to access some of Western South Dakota's famous landmarks, such as Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, or Badlands National Park, Angostura is a bit off the beaten track. In addition to the winding and hilly county road to merely get to the park entrance, unless you're looking to stay at the lake, you're looking at an hour-long drive each way to other destinations. That being said, Angostura is a beautiful lake with lovely beaches, making it not too bad of a destination in and of itself.
Sites: Angostura sports 169 sites and 12 cabins across four camping areas. There is a 14-day limit to stay, after which patrons must vacate for more than 24 hours. All RV sites are back-in only at about a 45-degree angle, with or without electricity of all standard amperage levels, along with two park-wide dump stations and a couple community potable water spigots at the dump station and in each camping area. Each pad with electricity is medium-to-fine gravel, with the non-electric being grass. A level spot was not able to be easily found, requiring the rig to be kept at a slight angle for the duration of the stay. The grassy areas around the pads were relatively spacious when looking back at some of the places previously reviewed in trips past, however be aware that ticks will welcome you to the spots with long grass.
Staff: The entrance guardsmen (government hired) and campground hosts (contracted for what would assume to be full hookup site only) were friendly and knowledgeable. Their presence was hardly known yet available for any issues that arise. However, they should be trained to check propane levels at their bathhouses, lest the campers be left without hot water for the showers, which did happen during our stay.
Amenities: Angostura has several swimming beaches, boat launches, and a marina across its vast grounds. A disc golf course and volleyball courts may also be found for campers and day use. For the campers at the sites, vault toilets and a bathhouse were found at each camping area, assuming the showers worked and you didn't have to go to another camping area.
Atmosphere: The camping areas were found to be family-friendly. Although many of the adults seemed content with keeping to themselves, you would usually see children riding their bikes around the camping area loop. Being a state park with additional fees for those visiting from out-of-state, many of the campers were in-state residents. Regulations weren't pushy at all, and the environment seemed lax yet under control.
Overall, Angostura State Recreation Area receives an 8 out of a possible 10 rating. Aside from the shower experience, one sticking point was the added entrance fee in addition to the campsite fees. If you stay for multiple nights or visit other state parks, such as Custer and its wildlife loop, the annual pass would easily pay for itself, and allow you to experience many of the other state parks for the rest of the year. In addition, our camping area was the one furthest from the entrance, making for an even longer and hillier drive that could be taxing on the rig. However, we were lucky enough to get our site on the bend of the loop, making for a straight and easy back-in. We would certainly see ourselves visiting this park again, although hoping to find a site closer to the entrance. The park fills up quickly, especially on weekends and holidays, with a 90-day window for reservations.
When you're finishing a long day of travel, chances are that you want to park for a bit, but don't necessarily want to shell out for a campground. There's one particular option that seems quite tempting.
Situated all across the roads of this country, both two-lane and four, rest areas give the driver a chance to take a break. However, most states have been cracking down on their rest area usage. Whether it's lobbying from hotel owners, governments believing the homeless population will increase, or evidence of crime, rest areas have been severely limiting stays, banning overnight parking altogether, or completely closing down these roadside stops. Leniency is shown to truckers because of electronic logs shutting off the engines, but even then it's not always welcome. Thankfully, the state of Kansas still allows overnight stays, although only one night, and as it should be since progress should be made to the next destination.
Many think of interstate highways when it comes to rest stops, and they aren't always in the best of shape with thousands of motorists using the facilities, coupled with limited maintenance, to where they take a beating. When you look at the roads less traveled, you may see somewhere much nicer. Enter the Cherryvale rest area, situated at the US 169 exit off the US 400 super-two highway in Eastern Kansas. Not only is it a fairly quiet place to stop for the night, but if you have a pup with you, there are a few walking trails in between the pollination areas to help bees continue to thrive. It is a bit off the beaten track being nowhere near an interstate highway, but when RVing, these aren't such bad roads to take.
One added benefit to the rest stops in this state, as well as several other midwestern and southern states seen during the escapades of Freedom Rolling, is the addition of dump stations. These are beneficial not only for those with RVs, but also some truckers. Dump stations are offered as part of the cost to maintain the rest area, and typically include a simple sewer manhole with a water outlet. It's not recommended that the potable water be filled with this, since the piping is designed for flushing purposes only, as opposed to drinking. However, if you've just left a campground without a sewer hookup, it's not a bad choice for lightening your load.
So the next time you Follow your Internal Compass, whether on the highways or byways, don't forget to take a break every once in a while, and maybe you'll find a good way to not only completely recharge, but take care of your added carrying.
Once again in a new series, time to hit the links and throw some discs. What, discs you say? Not clubs and balls? What sort of sorcery is this?
Many parks today are placing disc golf on their grounds. For the uninitiated, this combines then fun of throwing a Frisbee or similar brand disc with the challenge of a golf course. Mind you, a typical Frisbee-brand disc is not used in playing, as there are specially made discs made for all different sorts of distances and curves for any throw you wish to make. Instead of your traditional hole you'd see in golf, the "hole" is a metal bowl-like structure with suspended chains above, all mounted on a short pole or hung from a tree. Hazards range from tall grass to tree branches and trunks, and sometimes a small stream. The course length is a bit shorter because throwing the disc covers less distance than hitting a ball, but there's a good amount of ground to cover for a full 18-hole course.
We first tried disc golf a few years before getting the RV. Picking up a good deal on a starter pack of discs at the Mall of America during one of our road trips, between hectic work schedules, home improvements, and inclement weather, time was finally found to play a bit. The first ever match was at Clay Park Central in Liverpool NY. Located within a municipal park, this is a much more challenging course to play, even more so when there were no maps or signs explaining the course along the path. If it wasn't for painted hole numbers on the tees, we would have been completely lost. Plenty of hazards exist, and the course is designed to play the entire 18 holes in one go, meaning an awkward hike was awaiting for us, when we only wanted to play 9 holes.
Although each hole has a "par", for us, Match Play is the way to go. During match play, the "winner" of the hole is determined by who gets the disc in the "hole" in the fewest number of throws. If each player uses the same number of throws, the hole is "halved". Unlike James Bond and Goldfinger, there aren't any big prizes for winning a hole, not even who has to dump and flush the black tank. However, we'll keep score during the series so you can root for who you want. Each "match" is going to consist of 9 holes since that's what we usually play at a time, although we may be inclined to go for all 18 at a course, whether across two sessions or all at once. For those curious, a "starter pack" consisting of a distance driver (Innova Sidewinder, 9/5/-3/1), mid-range (Discraft Hawk, 0^), and putter (Innova Colt, 3/4/-1/1) are what we are using, and we'll make an update if we get new discs. She gets the distance driver while he gets the mid-range disc as the handicap, and the putter disc is shared as desired.
Not too much of specifics are remembered with this match other than her winning, and there's some question as to how many holes were actually won, but we have agreed to the following score:
Front 9: His holes: 1 Halved: 5 Her holes: 3
Back 9: Not played
Course Record: Him 0 - 1 Her Holes Record: Him 1 - 3 Her
Looks as if she has the advantage. How long will she be able to hold this? Stay tuned as we Follow our Internal Compass points towards the next course.
For Miles, it's state number 25. For the map, it's just another bit of coloring. For the humans of Freedom Rolling, one little day trip means so much more.
With a non-trailer trip into North Dakota, the hosts of Freedom Rolling have finished visiting every state in the Continental United States together. All of the lower 48 have been seen, side by side. This is not to say they hadn't previously seen what they were missing separately, with one of them having a trucker in the family, and the other visiting all of the lower 48 states in a single vehicle that was decommissioned just before leaving the old home for good. However, some of the states were first achieved with the other, and with the relationship rooted in our desire to be on the open road, it's only fitting that this be accomplished.
As of the writing of this, readers may look at the map and notice about 20 states missing. What gives? In the 48 state accomplishment, the hosts are certainly counting adventures before the RV, and were there a few of them! The Great Lakes and Northwestern states were accomplished during a vacation in 2016 to the Pacific Northwest. With a honeymoon in Las Vegas, the remainder of the southwestern states were covered. California was all of one exit beyond Primm while trying to kill time for the room to open up, but they saw the call boxes, so it counts. South Carolina came in 2019 during the first trip to the Space Coast of Florida just after driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, although had previously touched it during the first ever road trip together. The rest were accomplished during day trips, including a hockey game in New Jersey, an encounter with Lula in southern New England, and an impromptu trip to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, where the hosts continue to promise themselves not to take 500+ mile day trips, and seemingly continue to break that promise to this day.
With that goal being said and done, what's next for Freedom Rolling? Obviously making the rest of the states to be a "not black" color on the map is one of them. Hawaii is a little tough for a drive, and Alaska will require some extreme preparations and favorable conditions, especially with the drive through Canada. The rest of the lower 48 should certainly be something that is easily able to be accomplished. Some of the National Parks are certainly on the bucket list for any RVer. There are a few destinations each of the hosts would like to visit. It all just comes down to following your internal compass.
Miles, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore....
When starting this RV adventure, we knew it wasn't just going to be a happy couple. We were going to have a pup with us. With one year behind us, it's time to look at Traveling with your Fur Baby in this installment of "Did It Work?".
When we first began, we had a lovable American Staffordshire Terrier named Maggie. She was with us on the Shakedown and first two trips before losing her to health issues. Looking back to our travels, as much as it would seem selfish that our location abilities would have been limited by her, it is a sad and uncomfortable truth. We've been spending a great deal of time in an area that discriminates against certain dog breeds colloquially referred to as "pit bulls", and her well-being and safety from local bureaucrats would have very much been in jeopardy. The nature of this breed makes matters even more difficult if you think about starting an adventure like this, because the dog becomes very attached to its first recognized "owner". As much as a new owner would be very happy to have this companion, along with a reciprocal feeling possibly being mutual, the dog will always long for its first.
Fast forward a bit, and in comes Miles to the picture. The original strategy was to crate train so we could workamp. Needless to say, he grew a bit too large for the crate, and there isn't exactly a good spot for a larger one, so he now enjoys close company while respecting our needs. He's still a relatively small breed, which not only makes finding places to stay very easy given a 25-pound limit that seems to come up often, but also allows for a little more room for our living needs. The carrying of food and water transferred very well, as he enjoys a good national brand that keeps him healthy. Being on his own is starting to get better as the separation anxiety doesn't seem to manifest.
If there's one thing where we've found quite the swing, it's vet visits. Once we made it to the first workamping site, we found a terrific vet that was not only more concerned about the true health of the pup, but was much more reasonable in price. Fast forward to the next spot that has many ranches around, and the service is even better. We know we aren't going to get that lucky everywhere we go, but at least transferring his records from place to place is a breeze. Changing environments can be rough on the pup, though. This is where you have to really pay attention to what sort of things go around the area, from minor illnesses to allergies. Work with the locals, and try to stock up on the "essentials" before moving on to the next place.
When following your internal compass, remember to re-orient and adapt if necessary. That includes with the fur babies.
After several months of workamping, it's time to dust off the cobwebs and hit the road again!
Yes, trip 10 is soon upon us. This one is going to come with a return trip, as the workamping contract still has a little time on it. However, since we're hooking up the home and heading out, it'll be an official trip. When do we depart? Where are we going? We can tell you that it's to the northwest, but as for specifics, you'll just have to tune in to find out.
Now comes the fun of trying to make the "lessons learned" work. Our workamping location has graciously been providing alternate quarters throughout the term to help on fuel costs, as well as some unforeseen maintenance circumstances. Although we've tried to maintain "RV-like" living standards, the transition may come with bumps. We know what worked and what needed improvement, so now is the time to put it all into action. As the days count down, so we prepare to make this happen.
So join us as we Follow our Internal Compass to where it takes us next.
Copyright 2021-25 Freedom Rolling.
Logo Image Courtesy Clipartmax.com
United States Image Courtesy Simple Maps