South Dakota - Sunday

Sunday was all about rock climbing around Sylvan Lake with a little playing on the beach thrown in for good measure. Oh...and packing-up.....did I mention that I never want to camp without Ken? He got up early and was a packing-master!


On our way out of the park we came upon a herd of buffalo on the side of the road. It was so exciting. Not nearly as exciting as the herd that we saw a mile or 2 later, that were ON the road. As we were leaving the 2nd herd we came upon a motorcyclist who was heading directly toward the herd. We were a bit nervous for him.

Unfortunately the buffalo were not the last wild-life we saw that day, because a deer ran into the side of our car south of Sioux City. No one was hurt and the car could still be driven - Thank God (and I did)! I was bummed because I figured we just added a $1000 to our vacation expenditures. Ken called when we got home and found out that when a deer hits you, it is considered a Comprehensive Claim ($100 deductible and no ding on your record), rather than a Collision Claim ($1000 for high-deductible folks like ourselves).

SOOO if you can be safe when a deer hits you, don't swerve and get into a different accident (in a ditch or with another car), because that is considered a collision, my friend.

I felt it was another blessing to save $900! Also, the car dealership doing the repair offered us a free car to use (which isn't part of our insurance package at the moment) because when they called me after being contacted by our insurance company, I indicated that we wanted to use someone else (that we used before). Long story short, they threw in free use of a very new Traverse....cool car!

Late Sunday night, I thought our trip ended on a bad note and even wondered, "what message am I supposed to take from this?". Tuesday (by the time the insurance claim was set in motion), I realized, I was supposed to be reminded of God's blessings.

SO...in a nutshell, GREAT FRIENDS, GREAT VACATION, GREAT FUN, GREAT SCENERY...and the ending wasn't so shabby after all.