sat 9/29

Well we made to Zumbrota Minn in time for the cousin lunch and had a nice get together at one of my sisters homes.  Then today we got together with that sister and bummed around and went to supper at, get this, Carlos O'Kellys.  I figure he has a Mexican mother and a Irish father.  Its mexican food.  Anyhow tomorrow I hope to see my other sister and spend the day with her.  Somewhere in this i hope to see about 12 nieces and nephews and their families.  Only a couple live out of state and we might catch one of them on our way to Texas.  You will love this, when we left for going to the quilt store, we left the big dogs in their garage and planned to put diesel in his pack and take him along.  Get to the quilt store and Leroy remembers he left diesel in his pack sitting on top of the garbage can.  Poor little fellow.  I made him go back and get him.  There he was patiently waiting.
Well plan on driving around, checking out my old homesteads, looking up friends, and checking out quilt stores.  Donna will certainly have an expanded fabric collection after this trip.  We also hope to go to the Mayo Clinic tour.  I haven't been in there since i lived here and worked there and it has taken up the whole town. So plan to take an art tour and a patient tour(even if we aren't patients) and drive around the historical area.  All these areas are like my playground.  Grew up, went to school and worked here , with a few breaks, for almost 30 years. So it will be nice.

9/26 pm pictures

Lets see if i can load some more.  I have them on many sources and the other day i exhausted all battaries.
We went thru the Needles and if you haven't seen that I think it might be my favorite part.  The tunnels are only big enough for a car and the stuctures are so unusual.  The one is called the eye of the needle.

 

 This is one of the narrow tunnels you have to go thru.  You literally can touch the walls.

 This is the sculpture of Crazy Horse.  it is going very very slowly.

 Another car going thru the very narrow tunnel in needles.

 I can't find the really good picture of this but if you stand to the right and look directly in you can see the eye of the needle.

 This is Leroy is his beloved hills.  The indians gave them the name the Black Hills tho parts of it really are mountains going 4000 feet +/- high.

 This is the one i found that is the wild horses against the backdrop of the teepees and the sweat lodges of the sundance.  Below is the herd of Buffalo gathering.  They gather automatically at this time of the year and then this fri (tho we couldn't stay that long) they have a roundup and cull the herds, selling off only about 300 or so.  I guess it is pretty cool to watch and some year I would like to see it.  They came down out of one mountain and just made their way past the cars and we just had to wait for them to pass.  We were tied up for quite a while as it was a pretty big herd.  Pretty impressive to watch.

9/26 PM

I forgot to mention that we saw a section of the Berlin Wall in Rapid City.  That was quite an exhibit.

Also going to try and post some great pictures.

 This is one of the guys who wanted to eat my dogs

 These cats were so cute, probably not so in the wild wouldn't want to meet them but don't they have faces like domestic cats?

 This is just one of the wild horses

 This is from the nite lighting ceremoney.  I had a hard time holding it still.  Below is the berlin wall.

thurs 9/26

Hard to type 6's as i don't have that key anymore.  One of my sweet little birds was helping me type one day and decided it looked like fun.  She removed the 6 and the ctrl key on the right and  the left arrow before i could stop her.  they love keyboards.  So usually if she is out i only use the ipad.  ha ha  She loves to help me with everything and she is the one who was the wild woman that we almost got rid of cause we didn't ever think we could tame her.
We are on a bumpy road so forgive mistakes i don't catch.
Well we are almost in Minn. border.  Think we will only make it to Jackson tonight.  haven't had problems finding a place now that school is back in session and winter is coming on us.  We are headed for Rochester as I guess my cousins are getting together on Fri. so we will try to be there for that.
Well yest we finished in the badlands and we did lots of hiking, taking pictures (which probably all look the same) and went up and down a million (well maybe that's an exaggeration) stairs.  Then we drove till it was dark and we ended up in Murdo.  Well don't ever go there.  I decided I hate the town. People are rude, lazy and very flippant about things.  I say that as I had to interact with some.  Why you ask?  Well because on the overpass I saw a corgi running around in the road, acting lost and confused.  We stopped in the traffic with this rig and I ran back to get him.  Of course he wouldn't walk on a leash so I had to carry him back to the RV.  Then we went to the RV camp spot.  Would they help, minimally.  After some sarcastic comments about the people in town just let their dogs run, everyone does, and sometimes they get lost.  No there is no vet available, well maybe, if they can find his number, etc etc.  I was getting more and more upset.  So I took the numbers they gave me and stormed out saying," I sure as hell hope I never need help in an emergency here."  It was after that statement i guess when they gave me the phone numbers.  I went back to the RV and called the number.  No answer but left a message.  We then went out to supper as it was 8pm and we sure as hell weren't in the mood to cook.  The corgi was a sable and white intact mail with no collar or identification of any kind.  He appeared to be young.  He was as cute as could be, wanted to play play play, quite the dog.  We formulated plan B at supper that we would proceed to Chamberlain where we would check him for a chip and if didn't have one we would find a corgi rescue.  I then contacted my friend Barb Mayer who works tirelessly with corgi rescues and corgi health problems and obtaining carts for paralyzed corgis and such.  I told her i needed help and she got on the Internet and contacted rescues and put it out on lists and was up late helping me.  She even found a person in south Dakota who wanted to get a rescue from the rescue group.  So I even by bedtime had found a potential home for the guy.   Then the lady from the vet office called me (not sure if it was the vet or a worker) and said she had taken the info i left on my message and called everyone she could think of that might know who this dog belonged to. No one had answered but she would call if they did.  Early this am we get a call and the owner had gotten the info somehow (from a neighbor or something) and would come and claim her dog.   When she came she was young and has three kids.  Appeared educated.  BUT when i asked, why isn't he neutered, it was "Just haven't gotten around to it yet".  Suggested strongly that he have a collar with tags and be chipped and she said "ya maybe".  She didn't appear upset he was on the interstate and just said, oh yah,, we live over there on the other side.  By then I was so damn sorry I had even bothered to try and find his owner. I couldn't preach anymore or find out anymore because by then she was long gone.  She just wanted to get out of there ASAP.
Anyhow, it made for a restless nite for us and tho he did  settle down fairly well in a crate we had along and ate and drank well, he did fuss occasionally and Leroy did get up once to take him out.
So we got a late start this am again as we had breakfast at wall drug again and did a bit of looking around again even tho we have been there a million times.  We had to show Flat Maysen around.
We are now battling the wind again, we had it at our back for a while but it gets torturous out here on these flats at times.  Especially in the winter its a bear to drive, specially if it is a tiny bit slippery. I am sure Leroy will be exhausted.  Its also hotter than blue blazes it seems to me and the pups are feeling it too.  Be glad to stop right now but Leroy is on a mission!

tues 9/23

Well we stayed in the hills for 5 days vs a couple.  We love the area and there is so much to do.  I told you about one day in sturgis, well we had to spend another half day there with stuff and left for Rapid City.  That was our base for another three days.  We went to the lighting ceremony at the monument.  We drove thru the hills and tried to do stuff different than we have done.  We still ran out of time and didn't get to the monolith dig in hot springs. Didn't hit the spring again cause this time I ain't getting into no swim suit.  But we did go to the wild horse sanctuary.  We spent about three hours on tour and another just nosing around.  It was wonderful.  We saw wild horses running free.  American Mustangs, rescues, and Spanish mustangs, curly mustangs and Indian horses.  It was incredible.  The guy started this in 1988 and he was 62.  I have followed it from the beginning so it was such an honor to go there.  There is 113,000 acres and it encompasses many other wonderful historic sites.  Many petroglyths, an area where the Sundance is performed by the tribe that comes there.  Our guide was invited there for the main ceremony once and saw it.  It is where they go in the sweat lodge and they have a tree where they hang prayer cloths, and where they do the ceremony they performed in Man Called Horse, which is pretty gruesome.  He told us all about it and it is just amazing.  They come every year and rent the area and perform their rituals.  It was Indian land at one time so they return to the original place. We learned the history of the different horses, the story behind what he has done.  Man I could go on and on.  If anyone is in the area they should definitely see it.    We also went to Bear Country where we have wanted to go .  They have thousands of acres and many different western animals that live in their natural surroundings and you are in the cage (your car).  We saw deer, antelope which are no big deal but we saw bears, brown, black and grizzly, we saw lynx and bobcat, elk, reindeer, and artic fox, artic wolves,, oh my gosh, to many creatures to mention.  But the highlight was when the timber wolves heard our dogs.  They were on the car, trying to get the dogs, our dogs were having a conniption but we saw them up close and personal.Then we drove thru the hills and Leroy knows every back road around so we saw that.  We visited quilt shops, walked on trails.  I have a bunch of pictures from a trail i walked today in the needles.  That is my favorite part of the hills. So we have been busy.  The park was part of the chain we belong to and it had a space for Leroy to fly his kits and a dog run, so it was really nice.
Finally we saw all we had time for, visited all we came for, and it was time to leave.  So today we left and tonight we are in Wall.  We will spend the morning here tomorrow and then head for the badlands.  I love hiking the badlands.
I should have posted every day so i could remember and describe the highlights but I was shot by the end of the days.  So this week i hope i have TV every nite as the new shows are on and I do like my television, in spite of what people think.