28 Aug - Preparing to Depart Ellsworth Air Force Base

28 Aug
Down day today in preparation for departing tomorrow.  Doreen knocked out a couple loads of laundry and clean-up around here.  I cleaned and stow barbecue grill, load stuff into the truck, etc and prepared the route for tomorrow. I also researched a few stops ahead.  Doreen put some chicken in the crock pot for an evening meal.  I also helped a neighbor who was having Schwintek slide-out difficulties on his Jayco fifth wheel.

I called State Farm and unlike many other insurance companies, they do not cover the cost of repairing windshield chips.  But, they do have a deal with Safelite Auto Glass on a discount rate.  I have $2500 deductible on windshield replacement and the repair costs $50 plus tax, so better go for the preventive procedure rather than waiting for the chip to turn into a crack which it inevitably will.  Safelite will come here to the campground and make the repairs, so we set that up for this afternoon.  The guy came about 1730 hrs and turns our he is a Wyoming Air Guardsman.  Works in the Services Flight (food services, mortuary services, search and recovery, fitness, etc)  He did a great job.

 Interesting process of repairing the chip.  Involves gently picking out the chip a bit, the use of a vacuum pump-type system and the use of a resin filler kind of like super glue, in fact some companies actually use super glue but that is not what Safelite uses.  They guarantee this to not only make the chip basically invisible, but to keep the windshield from cracking because of the original chip. The resin hardens with ultraviolet light, so sunlight makes it harder.

The battery-powered machine is sitting on a foam pad on the hood.  You can see the yellow hose and the device head on the windshield.

That's about it for today.  Tomorrow's 314 mile estimated by Google at 4 hour 16 minutes will actually take us more like six hours.  Tomorrow we will arrive at our 22nd campground at North Lake Vermillion Camp Ground which is SW of Sioux Falls SD.