Turning Towards Home

Have you ever heard of a round “tuit?” Well I found one and decided to use it to finish my blog, we’ve only been home a little more than 3 months.

 We pulled out of Bowman, ND heading south to Black Hawk, SD on the 22^nd of Aug. At some point we found ourselves close to the town of Sturgis, SD and decided we just had to stop.

Thank goodness that it was not during Bike week, that would have been way too busy for us. We found a place to park and walked over to the main drag where we found Wieners Diner & Donuts on Main Street and had a second breakfast.

For all of my Biker friends that have gone to Sturgis during bike week this is what Main Street looks like without all your compatriots.

After we had a bite to eat, we continued on down the road to our stop at 3 Flags RV Park in Black Hawk, where we will be tourists for a few days. Our first stop is Mount Rushmore.

Gee, which picture do I choose? I had to put this one in showing us both at Mount Rushmore, HERE WE ARE! But I decided to go with a more traditional

Rather than showing the heads through the state flags. We talked about going over to Crazy Horse, but decided that it was not complete and we were not really in to it, but….

We took this picture when we drove by the Crazy Horse Site.

We also drove through the Custer State Forrest hoping to see the large herd of buffalo purported to be in this park.

We couldn’t find the herd, but we found a few males out grazing. Here’s one fellow that was by the side of the road and no we are not that close, I used a telephoto lens.

Several times as we have been traveling we’ve seen antelope. This is the first time we were able to stop and take a picture.

This fellow we were able to get close to. It’s a sculpture we found in Hill City across the street from the restaurant we just had to go for dinner. We had a $12 Fillet at the Alpine Inn. Of course, you had to get there early and you had two choices for dinner it was steak or some vegetarian dish. And it was all cash. When they opened the doors, the line was out into the street. We got there early enough to make it for the first seating. You got a wedge of lettuce with a drizzle of their dressing, the steak dinner with a baked potato, Texas Toast and if you paid extra you got a dessert.  Was it good, or worth the wait? You just have to go and decide for yourself. By the time we got home we were exhausted.

The next day I got up early to go and play a round of golf while Pat stayed in bed for a bit of a sleep in. As I was eating breakfast I noticed a rig across the way that looked familiar but dismissed it as “no it couldn’t be.” When I got back from golf I walked over to that rig and sure enough it was a fellow that is in my Friday league down in Pharr, TX. We went out to dinner with Brad and his wife the next night. We’ve run into folks we’ve met in our travels many times and it never gets old.

Our last day finds us on another tour heading out to the badlands. While you know that Badlands are called that because they are lands that are useless and not good for anything. Well, these lands were certainly not that. There was plenty of life.

This is the first of the Badlands life we came across as we entered the park. Later we came across more of these mountain goats grazing in some grass land.

Even though it was quite cloudy as we started out, I was quite taken with amount of color shown in the bands here in these hills.

Looking at other areas it was interesting to see how they erode and don’t have any growth areas on them. You can see the various geological layers in all of the hills.

Couldn’t resist through in some of these prairie dogs. We also saw some single buffalo, again no herds. At one point I got excited and took some pictures of what I thought might be a buffalo herd but when I blew the pictures up, I found the were beef cattle. This was not our year to see a herd of buffalo.

Our route out of the badlands took us through the town of Wall. So we had to stop at the famous “Wall Drugs” for a malted milk. Wall Drug reminded us of “South of the Border” on the east coast. In other words, “a tourist trap.” We were going out to dinner with our surprise couple, so not much to eat till dinner.

We are traveling again on the 26^th of August and doing an overnight in Chamberlain, SD. As we cross the Missouri River we spot a statue that we just have to come back to for a photo.

She’s called “Dignity” and she is in the Rest area overlooking the River. She honors the Lakota and Dakota peoples of the Dakotas.

The next two days were spent in Sioux Falls, SD.

Yes, these are the falls. We ate lunch in an old pump house next to the falls, it was quite nice. I also got a round of golf in.

Pat was looking forward to our next stop in Lincoln, NE where she wanted to go to the quilt museum which is run by the university. She dropped me off at the golf course and then headed for the museum where she came across this useful item.

That is if you have a camel you want to fancy up. Pat tells me she really enjoyed the display. Most of the collection came from the far east but it was certainly different than anything you would normally find here in the US.

Well we turned the camera off as we headed south towards home. So, the rest is just some story telling. As to the time frame, we are in late August and Hurricane Harvey has been ravaging the coast of Texas as we are heading south. We arrive in Guthrie, OK on the 1^st of September and the reports of damage are still not complete, but we know that our normal route would take us close to Corpus Christi and we are not sure if the flooding has not reached some of the highways we plan to travel.

We pulled out of Guthrie and headed for Wichita Falls avoiding the whole Dallas mess. Then went down through Brady to Carrizo Springs. This was a little town the first time we had stopped here, but, after the oil boom it is now full of campgrounds, man-camps, hotels and restaurants. When we made reservations at the campground, the night before, we were told they had plenty of room, the refugee’s had just left. When we arrived the lady told us they had every place full, all lawns full of tents and the neighbors were taking in the overflow all from refugees from hurricane Harvey just a few days ago.

The next day, we drove down through Laredo and continued on to our home in the Rio Grande Valley. How many miles? We started with our Easter trip to Port Aransas for about 365 miles, then up to Denver for around 1,300, over to Watsonville for another 1,400 then 1,200 up to Washington. A couple of thousand across the top of the country then back down to home for another 1,500 or so. Anyway, the total came in around 7,950 miles. With side trips in the car, we were well over 10,000 miles.

Pat had a class she need to attend in Dallas mid-September. We chose to go home rather than camp in the Dallas area until the class started. Campgrounds are hard to come by and I was ready to get home. So, after a week at home we were off to Dallas with the car to get Pat to her class and me to a couple of new golf courses that got me to 201 different courses throughout North America.