South Dakota

We joined two nation-wide campground memberships, Coast To Coast and Resort Parks International. For a small annual membership fee, we can now visit privately owned parks we could not get into previously – most for only $10 a night. With this in mind, we decided to stay a while longer in the Black Hills area to use our new memberships. The entire Black Hills area is beautiful right now thanks to all the rain. We moved closer to Rapid City and relocated to Hart Ranch RV Resort. Set in the foothills near Hwy 79, it is a very nice Resort (not really a campground) with plenty of activities to keep a person or family very busy. They have a large heated pool, three hot tubs, store, restaurant, tennis courts, pool tables, a paved trail for bikes, walkers, and golf carts and much more. Yes, they have an 18-hole golf course, too.

We were warned of Mountain Lions in the area near Hart Ranch, but encountered a different type of cat entirely. For several days, a young solid grey cat approximately 4 or 5 months old kept walking up and down the street in front of our RV. We finally called and he came right over, so we checked him out. It was a neutered male and very friendly (and hungry). After feeding him, he stopped walking around the RV Resort, and chose to remain on and under our RV step.

The next door neighbors also checked him out. The cat liked their two bird dogs and their 4-year-old daughter who was able to pick him up with no problem. He also liked our cats when we let them nose each other. This was one well socialized cat! We checked for lost cat signs all around the Resort, and checked with management and workers with no success of finding his people. We tried to find him a home in the park with our neighbors and park workers with no success. It is hard to believe someone dumped a neutered cat this well socialized, so perhaps he got out of the rig without the owners noticing until they were many miles down the road. We learned today that he is quite an escape artist when he wants to go outside - and difficult to pick back up.

He tired of living on our coach step while we were looking for his people and ran inside every time we opened the door. You can guess the rest of the story – he moved in and would not willingly leave, crying near the door when placed back outside. Now we have 3 too many cats! He has now been to the vet who confirmed he is a neutered male. We had him de-wormed and given immunizations as a precaution – even though he may well have been vaccinated previously. He also likes to travel by RV, sitting on the couch while we drive with no complaints at all. He has no name yet, though Little Guy, Smoke, Houdini (the escape artist), and Hitch for Hitchhiker are possibilities. Time to name the cat - any suggestions?

In the pic above he looks quite happy with his new home.

After using our membership for one week at the Hart Ranch, we moved to Rushmore Shadows RV park, also near Rapid City, for 3 nights to use our membership there as well - again for $10 a night. We plan to depart the area on Tuesday.

The weather wasn’t as bad this week. It would start out sunny and by noon there would be thunderstorms. We managed a trip to the Badlands NP and only had a few raindrops fall while seeing the sites. We stopped to eat a roast beef sandwich special at the Wall Drug in Wall, SD. We were surprised by the maze of stores and eating areas as we wandered around inside the drugstore. It is an interesting story about the beginning of the drugstore and free ice water. Ted Hustead and his wife, Dorothy were quite the entrepreneurs in their time. You can find their story at this website.

Sandy has added more pictures from the area to the Black Hills 2. There are pictures of our drive through Spearfish Canyon with three waterfalls to visit and Mt. Rushmore. Of course, we also walked the Presidential Trail as well. While we were visiting the presidents, we noticed people on top of George’s head. It turned out to be a rescue team practicing emergency evacuations of injured workers.

For Sandy’s quilting friends: this folder also includes her Christmas Bears wall hanging designed by Mckenna Ryan along with her new designing fabric wall. Thanks to Cher’s suggestion, Sandy used the backside of a picnic tablecloth for her designing fabric wall. She was able to keep the tablecloth attached to the side of our rig with the magnetic clips, but still needs to use straight pins to keep the blocks from blowing away. Sorry, no pictures of mountain goats. Maybe next time.

Black Hills Quilters Guild Quilt Show

Dan’s sister, Kristy took Sandy to Rapid City with only one agenda – quilts and more quilts! Sandy had a blast last Saturday. She enjoyed meeting many of Kristy’s quilting friends along with the owner of Quilt Corral Too. Joan is the most friendly, easy-going shop owner that Sandy has ever met. The Strip Club quilting group showed many new items and material to purchase, but Sandy’s favorite part was the Show-n-Tell by the people attending. So many amazing stories and quilts! Kristy and Sandy spent over 3 hours between the Strip Club and browsing through many bolts of fabrics and patterns.

After re-energizing with lunch, they went to the annual quilt show at the Civic Center. There were over 400 quilts entered this year. There were also quite a few booths filled with quilting merchandise from shops in surrounding states. It was Heaven! Yes, Sandy took many pictures of the beautiful quilts. She has posted them in Webshots under Black Hills Quilt Show.

Here's a picture of Dick & Kristy on their back porch.

But wait! There’s more. After the quilt show, Kristy took Sandy to one more quilt shop - a beautiful 2-story historic building packed full of material. Every room in The Thimble Cottage Quilt Village is filled with anything and everything you can imagine for quilting. From the website here is a description of how this store became a village: Our wonderful new shop consists of a hotel built in 1934 and a Victorian house built in 1917. The two buildings were connected with a huge foyer in the early 70’s. So the Thimble Cottage Quilt Shop became the Thimble Cottage Quilt Village. Sandy did not take pictures of the quilt shops, but you can find both online. She highly recommends visiting both shops if you happen to be in the area.

Of course, Sandy was so inspired by her day out with Kristy that she had to come home and start sewing on her machine. Since it was raining, she had to setup her sewing room in the kitchen/dining area by clearing off her side of the counter and putting on the sink covers for extra space. She has been sewing ever since. Oh yea, and Dan can still sit at the dining counter with his laptop without getting stuck with a pin.

Sandy would also like to note that she did not bring home bags of material. She only brought home one small bag with Batik Fat Quarters for an ongoing appliqué project and a couple of patterns.

If you are wondering what Dan was doing this whole time, he was busy installing a US Gear Unified Tow Brake system in the Subaru in Dick and Kristy’s garage. It was nice to work indoors in a well set-up garage for the install.

There’s Rain in Them There Hills

Weather has not been the best in the Black Hills so we haven't been getting out much to see the sights. For over a week, we have had a heavy mist and/or rain over the southwest area. Could be worse, it could be snowing. The hills are so green right now that we feel like we are in Washington State instead of South Dakota. There are some pictures posted in Webshots under Black Hills. If the weather clears up, we will definitely add to the folder.

The first couple of days were great with beautiful blue skies and fat fluffy clouds. We took it for granted and did not rush around trying to look at all the sights. We drove the Pigtail and Needles scenic highways. We were able to see Mt. Rushmore through the Pigtail tunnels. We stopped to see many different lakes and hiked up a couple of the trails. At one pullover, Dan found himself surrounded by chipmunks. We think Sandy’s camera clicking brought them out. One chipmunk thought he was a model. He would pose – click – move closer – pose – click – move closer. This went on until he got so close to the lens that Sandy finally had to get up before the chipmunk climbed on to her camera. On another rainy day, we drove through Custer State Park and saw many buffalo, antelope, deer, wild turkeys, and of course, the Burro Gang.

On a different day, we drove up to Sturgis. It certainly looks different than it did during Sturgis Bike week. We had lunch in Deadwood at Kevin Costner’s restaurant Jake’s inside the Midnight Star. The restaurant is entertaining with costumes and posters from Kevin’s movies to look over while waiting for lunch to be served. We also stopped by Saloon Number 10 to see where Wild Bill was shot in 1876.

Traffic Jams & Highway Robbery!

We were very happy to see the Black Hills of South Dakota after traveling through the plains of Kansas and Nebraska. Kansas and Nebraska were very pretty with miles of green wheat fields, but we were ready for some pine trees and mountains.

We thought we were done with traffic jams and tolls for a while only to run into both! On our way to Spokane Creek Campground, we spent a half hour in a traffic jam. Please see pictures to the right. Some people tried to reason with the buffalo only to be chased back to their cars. Others tried to sneak around the buffalo only to be blocked in on the wrong side of the road. There was no reasoning with the big guys. It took a group of motorcyclist’s rev’ing engines to convince the buffalo to move off the road.

The next day, we decided to go for a drive before visiting Dan’s sister, Kristy and her husband, Dick. We ran into a highway robbery already in progress. When the Burro Gang saw us, they immediately surrounded us. The leader stuck his head through Dan’s window and started demanding food in order for us to pass. We only had stale tortilla chips, which they took, but we were told next time they would expect something better. Whew! Close call!

We are having a wonderful visit with Kristy and Dick. We enjoyed a quiet Sunday on their back porch watching a variety of wildlife go through their yard. We are also doing a lot of sightseeing so we should have lots of pictures to add to Webshots the next time we post a travel blog.