Alive! Alive!

No, we are NOT in New York. We're right here at "home" in South Dakota. Golly a person takes a few days off for illness and Her Reader gets all grumpy. Cool it, Bro.

As I felt better on Sunday, we both went to Church. It was a good service and good lessons. The day was spectacularly beautiful. We set up chairs outside. Ray cleaned the wheels and put on the covers so they'd stay clean and the tires won't get sun rot. After that he napped in the outside chair and I read. Norman laid at our feet or rolled in the grass. We all enjoyed Sunday! I remember what I fixed for lunch, but I don't remember supper. Maybe spaghetti?

Monday we made the trek to Mount Rushmore. The day was beautiful and sunny, but windy as heck. I sat on a bench for a moment to put on some sunblock and my sunglasses were blown off the bench. Luckily, they were still within Ray's reach through the fence. We walked the President's Trail at the bottom of the mountain. Lovely views of the carvings and the surrounding lodge pole pine forest. Those lodge poles were bending and swaying in the wind. Ray and I were among the oldest on the trail. It was mostly young people and young parents, kids. The ranger said it was easy except for the last .4 mile. And he was right. The last .4 mile was straight up. Luckily there were stairs, and landings to rest on. Holy cow, was it ever UP. We saw Borglum's studio at the bottom of the hill and then hiked back up to the plaza and amphitheater level. It was a good work out. The howling wind kept us cooler, at least. Not many other people in their sixties (or older) were brave enough to tackle it, but we were! We were glad we'd made the trip to Rushmore. I'd like to go back and see the lighting ceremony some evening.

Norman had stayed home, but it turned out that we got a spot in a nice cool parking garage and they do have 2 dog areas by the lots. So he could have gone with.

The roads up to the Mountain are curvy and we wished we had our motorcycles. We did meet a group of motorcyclists from Washington. The wet side even! But most of them trailered their bikes. Weenies! It would have been a challenging ride in all that wind, though.

Right at the base of the mountain is a town called Keystone. It is the world's biggest tourist trap. I used to think that Lake Geneva was, but Keystone has that beat all hollow. Of course there are huge billboards along the way touting each of the many attractions. I just had to think back to when Kim and I were small and begged our 'rents to stop at each and every attraction. If there was a reptile town, we we wanted to stop. If there was a cave, we wanted to stop. If there were trail rides, we wanted to stop. Didn't matter much what it was, if it had a billboard, we wanted to stop. We begged and clamored and carried on. I can remember that we were quite unrelenting and merciless, but by dint of sheer strength and moth of pocketbook we never did get to stop at any of those places. My poor Dad! I'm sorry, Dad.

Here's a picture of the neatest thing at the chainsaw carver's place:

Tuesday, my legs were screaming at me for abusing them on the many stairs I made them walk up on Monday. Ow. My legs have had their revenge. They still hurt, but not as much. Our walk last night was shortened, Ray and I were tired, and I think ol' Norm was too.

We spent the day road tripping. We took a scenic loop trip, which included Belle Fourche (pronounced Bell Foosh for some reason) and the Geographic Center of the Country and continued on to Devils Tower and then home.

Belle Fouche is an old town, and still has some of the older elements. It's the home of South Dakota's first and longest running Rodeo. I am glad we were not there Rodeo week, it would have taken all week to get through town! There's one stoplight in Belle Fouche, and it's right down town. The park where the geo marker is is part of a complex of parks and walkways they call River Walk. You can walk a loop around the city if you have enough time and strength. We saw several portions of the Walk and it's really quite nice. Because of all the rain it's still beautiful and green and the flowers are blooming like mad, just like in Rapid City.

At the park, they have the first log cabin built in the county. It was two stories and quite small by today's standards, but a mansion for the prairie frontier. The man had to take his team of horses up into the Black Hills, chop the trees and then haul them back to his homestead with the team. Each log was hand shaped into a square, and the corners are dovetailed. The last surviving family  member gifted the house to the city for preservation.

Right next to the cabin is the Tri-State Museum. It's small but very informative, with a wide range of artifacts and a bookstore focusing on the history and geology of the area. I am astonished at how small women were in the 1800s and early 1900s. I am also pained thinking about getting laced into one of their corsets so they could fit into those teensy dresses.

After being educated we took off for Devils Tower in Wyoming. We passed through a very small town, Aladdin, population 15, that has a small (tiny) restaurant called Cindy's. They reputedly have THE BEST homemade pies in the whole state. We didn't stop.

Devils Tower is out in the middle of not much but scenery. The park itself is pretty small, but it was one of the first places set aside as a natural, protected area, even before South Dakota was a state. The real name of Devils Tower is Bear Lodge. The Native Americans have long associated it with bears. The Lakota origin story says that two children were being chased by a large bear and found a flat rock in the forest, where they paused to catch their breath. The rock said "Hang on!" and then rose into the sky, carrying the children beyond the bear's reach. He was angry at missing his dinner, and clawed at the rock, trying to climb up and eat the children. But he could not, as hard as he tried. So the children were saved. The legend does not say how they got down, but I'd like to know that.

Bear Lodge is still sacred to the Indian tribes in the region, and every June the tower is closed to climbing, because that's when Native Americans hold ceremonies and religious events at the tower. They still call it Bear Lodge. The name of the tower on the first published map in 1851 calls is Bear Lodge. But in later years, I think 1880s, another map maker visited and for what ever unknown reason changed the name to Devil's Tower. Because of a printing error, the apostrophe was left out and so it became Devils Tower and remains so to this day although Native Americans have long petitioned to have it changed back.

Whatever you call it, it's an amazing sight. Even the geologists don't know exactly how it was formed, which makes it all the more amazing and interesting to me. There is a hike around the bottom of the tower, but it is 2K and my legs were angry enough, so we didn't go. Norman went with us this day, and he could not go on the trail anyway, he could only walk around the parking lot. So that's what we did and still managed some pretty good photos.

On the way out of the park we stopped at the Prairie Dog village and took more pictures.

The entire day was filled with marvelous scenery. I have not even got words to express how beautiful it was. Our eyes were filled and our souls replenished, even as our bodies got tired. We stopped to get a pic of the SD sign, as I missed it on the way in the first time.

In Spearfish was the first opportunity to forage for supper, so we stopped there and had some supper at a Chinese restaurant which was very good. We got home just before sunset, so we took Norman out for his evening walk and then we collapsed into the TV zone.

Today we visited yet another laundromat in an attempt to find "the" one. I think there isn't a "one" when it comes to laundromats. The washers were only 2 bucks, but the dryers cost 25 cents for 5 minutes. It takes a lot of minutes to dry the clothes. We eventually lost patience and came home with several semi-dry shirts, which are now decorating the cabinet door knobs, finishing the drying process. Not very elegant, but cheaper than feeding yet more quarters into the dryers. By the way, SEND QUARTERS!!!

We also stopped at a grocery store. It was nice enough, but no store in this area seems to have heard of sugar-free fruits or pickles. Or sugar free ginger ale. Weird. We did find thin buns though, and some nice Portobellos.

On the way home, we stopped at the Over The Border and had a really late lunch or a really early dinner. We were fairly happy with our entrees, but their refrieds and rice need some work. The salsa, however, was spectacular good.

I don't know yet what we will do tomorrow, perhaps the National Fish Hatchery and the Motorcycle Museum. On the Fourth, I think we'll stay home. The park is having a Pot Luck at 3 pm on the 5th. Summer has arrived in full force, and it will be 93 degrees on the 4th. With the mandatory Thunderstorms.

My thighs still ache. Note to self: climb up and down stairs more often.

By the way, the Black Hills aren't black. They are a rainbow of colors, but black isn't one of them. At a distance, they do look sort of black, because of the dark green of the lodge pole pines. But up close, no black at all. Beautiful, though. We really like South Dakota. If only the weather was more like western Washington!

Oh, yeah, we finally identified the little brown birds that run so quickly and don't fly unless they have to, thanks to Sibley's Guide to Birds. They are Semipalmated Plovers! You should see their little legs go...they blur, just like in the cartoons.