September 24, 2007 – Mouse, Blue Ox, and Storms

We have had a houseguest for a few days now. When we were in the Black Hills, I heard some scratching on what I thought was the roof. There were a lot of red squirrels there that ate our flag and tried eating our outside chairs so we thought maybe they were doing damage to our roof. Andy checked it out and all was ok so we figured it was probably birds just walking around. So we have heard the scratching on and off for the past couple days, just figuring it was birds on the roof.

Yesterday morning, I opened a drawer where I keep my gum and it looked like one of the packs had teeth marks in it but then I figured it might just be rub marks from opening and closing the drawer. Then last night, I pulled out my oven mitts and found that both the thumbs of the mitts were chewed thru and the stuffing taken out. So before we went to bed, we put cat food and peanut butter in an ashtray in the drawer and this morning it was all gone…

So off we went to the store for traps and when we set up this afternoon, we set up the traps and caught a mouse. The traps will be set for a while since we are not sure if we only had one or have more… Yikes!!

(If you are wondering about our cat, he expects us to catch the mouse. He will look at it and then at us as if to say "you expect ME to take care of this - NO WAY!")

We decided to move on today to Pender, Nebraska. A cold front is moving in with severe storms so we decided not to stay at the lake.

Pictures of the Nebraska countryside:



The storm is moving in on this one – what an eerie sky:

We are here in Pender at the Blue Ox factory and what incredible customer service. We have a tru-center and towing equipment from Blue Ox. On the tru-center, we lost our celanoid (sp?) somewhere during the trip to Alaska and we were here to buy another one. Doug, one of the employees, checked it out and they are giving us a new upgraded system. It will be coming out in November so they will send it to us – free. Isn’t that wonderful.

They also serviced our tow bar – free.

And we can camp in their campground (full hookups plus WiFi) – free.

And we received a factory tour – free.

And we received a complimentary package for staying (includes a collapsible cooler and other items) – free.

What incredible customer service. They go above and beyond!!! I would recommend this company to everyone – they stand behind their products.

We met our neighbors here at the campground (Jeff, Deana, and their daughter) who are also here for service. We had a really nice get together.

And the storm rolled in tonight. Our NOAA radio went off several times and some of the counties did get large hail but we only received the wind and rain.

We are not sure where we are going next so we may just stay another day and figure out our next moves. I would like to spend more time around the Missouri so we’ll see.


Miles Traveled: 95
Routes Traveled:
South Dakota: US-81
Nebraska: US-81; US-20; NB-15; NB-35; NB-16