I took my time packing up, then hit the road to my next overnight spot. Canada’s wildfires sent a great deal of smoke to the area, limiting visibility quite a bit. I’m sure it would be a lot more scenic, if only I could see more of it. I turned my headlights on despite it being bright and sunny. The roads I was on were 65 mph two-lane highways. It takes a lot of distance to pass someone at these speeds, and I wanted to make sure oncoming traffic could see my white van in the white smoke long before they committed to a pass they didn’t have room to make.
I passed through the town of O’Neill, “The Irish Capital of Nebraska.” While there were no common chain stores here, I found absolutely everything I needed to resupply. The local no-name grocery store was well stocked. It even had a water dispenser, so I took the opportunity to go back in after buying my groceries and refill my empty seven-gallon jug. Business was slow enough that one of the cashiers came out to the van with me to bring the cart back when I was done. I’d just checked out my groceries with her, so she was confused that I was back for water so quickly. Had I gone home and put things away so quickly? Actually, yes — my home is in the parking lot. She also got a kick out of the motorcycle in the trailer, which is where I keep my spare water jug.
You have to watch out for all kinds of traffic out here. The shoulder was well-maintained gravel specifically for the Amish buggies that use this road, which is particularly important when traffic is zooming by doing at least 65.
Before long, I entered South Dakota. While this is the first time I’ve driven here, it’s not a new state for me. In 2019 I covered Sturgis Bike Week for RideApart and wrote several articles about it. I’d flown into Rapid City from New Hampshire, though, and had never been here under my own power before. I also haven’t seen the eastern part of the state, which I was passing through now.
The town of Winner looked nice, except the road construction through town was awful and confusing, zig-zagging between opposite sides of the road with no warning and big bumps. I missed the picture because of it, but there is an actual restaurant in town called “Winner Chicken Dinner.” They had to.
My destination for the day was a small town park in the town of White River. According to iOverlander, there were several free campsites at this park with good reviews. It was all true. Even better, nobody else was there, so I had my choice of any campsite and had the entire place to myself. I chose one near the bathroom with a view between the trees for Starlink. Lister soon made himself comfortable.
Since I’d had my headlights on all day for the smoke, I hooked up my Windows laptop, went into FORScan, and enabled my van’s daytime running lights. This will give me the forward visibility I need in this smoke, but without burning up the rest of my van’s lights needlessly in the process. I can turn them off again later so I don’t blind my camp in Quartzsite when I pull in after dark.
As I got things set up, I gently closed one of the back doors and then saw liquid pouring out the back. My diesel tank had fallen off the door and sprung a big leak.
I quickly moved the tank to a position where fuel wasn’t coming out anymore. I detached the fuel line, then poured the remaining fuel into a diesel can I’d picked up to carry some extra with me, but hadn’t filled up yet. I’ll save that for later. To prevent further leakage for now, I turned on the heater and ran it out of fuel to clear the line. I’ll have to prime it again anyway once I get a new tank ready to go. Fortunately, just about all the leaked fuel had gone out the back door, not into my living space, so at least that part of my plan had worked well. I did as much clean-up as I could and left all the doors open for a while for ventilation.
Fortunately, it’s finally warm enough overnight to not need the heater and should continue to be for a few months. This gives me time to engineer a proper solution, not just patch this tank back together. I never really trusted a metal fitting on a plastic tank anyway. I’ll work on this once I get back to civilization.
I’ve been fighting a fly infestation in my van. I’m not sure whether I picked them up at Meg’s, at Grove Lake where they got particularly bad, or what. They have proven resistant to every type of chemical warfare I’ve tried. (I also have to be careful what kind of chemical warfare I use because I don’t want to harm Lister or myself in the process. It’s poison, after all.) I’ve cleared all my trash, including the litter box, and set up fly strips in strategic locations to scoop them up. This has worked, but so far they just keep coming back. I’ve been leaving all the doors open to try to get them to leave, too. They’re already inside, so it’s too late for screens at this point. Hopefully, a strong gust of wind will make them go away.
I took Lister for a walk around the park, both because he enjoys it, and to calm my own nerves from the fly infestation and my van becoming the Exxon Valdez. I made an easy dinner and enjoyed the temperatures as they cooled off. I’m on the western edge of the Central time zone, so the sun was up after 9:00 pm. We retreated into the van to relax the rest of the night before it was even dark.
Smokey Da Van 