Well Shaded

What do you do with an extra day in Mitchell, South Dakota? You visit the Corn Palace, Great Clips and Walmart. Then, you nap. Oh yeah, and you watch the wind blow!

It's been a breezy, hot and humid day here. So breezy, in fact, that we probably would have decided to sit here another night had we not already decided to do that. We've paid up for our well-shaded site through tomorrow night. Until then, we're seeing the sights, kicking back and adjusting to Summer in the Great Plains. With today's highs into the 90s, our basement air is really humming!

One of today's Walmart purchases is already making life on the road a bit easier. When we were in Island Park, one of our neighbors (and, I'm sorry I can't remember whom) shared a helpful hint about how to keep kitties out of the driver's footwell in a motorhome. They screened this off-limits area with an accordion-fold car windshield shade.

Absolutely brilliant!

If you are of the feline persuasion, footwells are one of the most curious parts of a motorhome. Find your furry way into one and you have instant access to miles of sugary wires to chew on and a cavernous space deep behind that football field-sized dashboard in which to hide. (How do we know? Our boy kitty found his way into the passenger footwell in our first moose!)

Thankfully, the new moose has just one footwell. Kitty Nirvana lies just below our steering wheel. How have we kept our furry creatures out of all of that nifty stuff? We've stuffed two strips of 3-inch memory foam (left over from the bed in the first moose) in between the pedals and around the base of the steering wheel. It's not at all attractive, but it works. But, after more than a year of use, the stuff is getting dirty. And, frankly, I'm tired of stuffing the stuff at every stop.

So, while we were cruising the aisles at Walmart this afternoon, we checked out the auto care area and picked up an accordion-fold sunshade. You know, the silvery kind? We brought it home, cut about four inches off the bottom and unfolded it (silver side in) below the steering wheel. Viola! Instant cat barrier.

Sure, if they really wanted to get behind this silver and styrofoam folding screen, they could. But, out of sight out of mind. And, that's really true with cats! If they can't see it, they are not that interested.

Of course, the niftiest thing about this new addition is that it folds up in a flash, weighs next to nothing and takes up little space. That heavy memory foam is going to find its next home in a campground trash dumpster in Mitchell, SD.

And, we are now the proud owners of one well-shaded footwell!