Monday, September 10, 2012

Our stay in Murdo, SD

Check out the previous post for how we ended up in this small town and a little about it.  As it turned out, we had two issues with our RV – the alternator was not charging the chassis battery and the switch to completely turn off the chassis power had failed, but with the help of a service guy, we were able to limp into Murdo under our own power.

The road service folks had made arrangements for us to stay at the American RV Park & Kamp and I’m sure glad it was there as we then had water and power.  This is a shot of my girls catching up on the latest news.


The campground was next to the Rusty Spur bar/restaurant so we went there for dinner - it received from 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 stars from the restaurant rating sites.  This is my shot of the restaurant and one lifted from the internet, and my meal.


This is the menu and my meal - We had the rib-eye steak on special and it was very good and cooked just right. 

Even though it’s 160 miles away, Murdo, gets a lot of overflow business from the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis (72nd one this year with sometimes 500,00 attendees) and the Rusty Spur interior seems to support that.

There was a highlight to our stop in Murdo, as I noticed a few obvious locals who were sitting at the bar head for a table out on the patio.  When we finished eating, I bought a round of what they were drinking and headed out to join them to see what I could learn about the area.  One thing I discovered was one of the cattlemen was a brother to the Rusty Spur and the guy who owned the Campground and the server/bartender was is sister-in-law.  You must be careful who you bad-mouth in a small town and fortunately I learned this many years ago.  One of the cattlemen had 4000-5000 acres and the other said he just had a hobby ranch of 1700 acres. 

Visiting with the people is always more fun for me than seeing things – I ended up staying until 11 pm CDT – way past my bedtime.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/3/12 event date

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like you and the boys had a nice evening visiting. So, so true about what you say in a small town. You only need to learn that lesson once.

    Safe travels.
    Sam

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  2. Looks like that Rusty Spur menu has been used and abused. ;) How fun to sit around with the locals. Growing up in a small town of under 1000, I understand the whole incestuous situation.

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  3. You always stumble upon great little hole in the wall places.. I love it! P.s.. I've been to Sturgis, it's amazing how many bikes can be found in one location! lol

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  4. I love stopping at places like that. There are so many little interesting sights.

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  5. Buying a round of drinks for the locals was nice of you! The steak and onion rings look amazing.

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  6. Sounds as though you had a great evening even though you had RV problems.

    We have an old trailer parked in an out-of-the-way resort (used loosely :-) on the backside of Siltcoos Lake....when we had problems last year, we had to find somebody to come to us....not always easy, but we found a really nice guy.

    I love getting to know the people!

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  7. I like to talk to locals, too. And I'm always amazed at the scale of things out west; a 1700 acre "hobby" ranch really is funny to us!

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  8. Larry, More RV adventures!! You guys have been lucky when it comes to emergency RV sites and repair folks... You do need a stretch of good or postive RV'ing! That steak looked pretty good! Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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  9. Even though you had RV problems, it sounds like you certainly made the most of your situation. Safe journeys.

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  10. The "hobby ranch" label cracked me up! Buying the locals a round of drinks, I always knew you knew how to make friends and make the most of a not so ideal situation. Great photos, Larry!

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  11. I bet there were some stories told around that table on that night.

    Steak and onion rings? Heck yeah!

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  12. You guys just might run into all the bikers on your way back if you go near Sturgis. When we came back from Banff, Canada, we drove by thousands of bikers in SD! i love to roll my windows down and hear the sound of those Harley's!

    Sorry you had problems with your RV!

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