Why Do You Blog?

This is a question that I think every bloggers ask themselves at least once a year if not more often. Why do I “waste” 2-3 hours every week or so putting myself through the stress of having to get a blog posted? I will tell you right now if that is your approach, blogging may not be for you. The answer to this question varies from blogger to blogger but we started blogging for two reasons; to maintain a personal diary of where we went and what we did and to keep our friends and family informed on what we are up to. It is a great way to maintain a historical record and pictures of our travels that we can refer to at a later date and there is no doubt that our friends and family await our posts with great anticipation (not) each week. I think for the most part this is working and why we continue to do it. I have thoughts that maybe someday our kids, grandkids and maybe great grandkids will read back long after we are gone and think “Wow, they were really cool”. By the way, in reality I think our kids are the last ones who read our blog. We will talk to them on the phone and they will ask questions that leave you with no doubt they have not been reading our posts.

There are definite pros and cons to blogging. The record of where we have been is great, we will often refer back to a post to remind ourselves about how blessed we are, what we did in a certain area or find a specific picture we are looking for. It can also be a curse as every once in a while I find myself stressing that I need to get a blog post out or do something “blogworthy”. Actually that can be a good thing as the fact that we blog has pushed us to do things we would not have normally done or push ourselves to “up” the adventure level a little. Something we have never regretted.

At some point you also ask yourself why do people read blogs and how can you get more readers. To answer this question I reflected on why we read them. When we first started reading blogs it was for the information gained from the writer. What to do in a certain location, sights, attractions and things to do when we travel to a new location. Blogs can be a great resource what to do in a certain area. What hikes are there? What are our “must see” attractions”? What are the best boondocking or campgrounds in the area? We have specific blogs we use for each of these topics. For example, we always look at Oh the Places They Go! whenever we want to know what the best hikes are in an area. These two always find the most incredible hikes in an area for their “lunch with a view”. Or we will look at Living The Dream or Down The Road if we want to know what breweries to hit in a certain area as these four always seem to have a beer in hand! Now that I think about it, this very well could be the reason some people read our blog!

The most thought provoking blog we read is Two Lanes of Freedom as it is well written and takes the reader on a journey as if you were actually there. I tend to avoid blogs that are political or negative, we get enough of that in real life and really don’t need to seek it out. But as time has progressed I find that we are reading other blogs to keep up with the day to day life of friends we have met on the road and live vicariously through them via their writing.

So what brought on this subject this week? Well, this week we might, just maybe hit 500,000 page views on our blog! A big deal…..to absolutely no one at all…… except a little ego boost for me. But it did make me think of why I put myself through this.

So what were this week’s blogworthy adventures? Well, our long awaited shed finally arrived! If you recall, we ordered this shed last September when Jim and Diana were visiting. It was originally to be delivered in late November so we could store our jeep and 4 wheeler in it when we traveled south for the winter. Well, November was delayed to December which was delayed until January. But then it got too cold and we had to head south and called and asked for them to wait until our return in April. Luckily our neighbor was nice enough to let us store the jeep and 4 wheeler in his shed for a few months. So when the weather warmed and we knew when we would be back in South Dakota Barb started calling asking for an early April delivery. Early April turned into late April when we finally got a call that it would be delivered and installed on April 25^th between noon and 5pm. Woohoo, we had a date!

Then we got a call on the 23^rd saying it would be delivered and installed the next day between 7am and noon. The next day we stayed home watching the driveway….8:00, 10:00, noon….then we got a phone call that they would not arrive to the next day. So we went about doing our thing and what pulls into the driveway at 5pm? Yup, our shed!

Call it 5 months late or a day early, it has finally arrived!

They worked until 8:00 when it got to dark but they got the frame up.

After laying it out they started putting it together

Three hours later the frame was up

The next day they worked 13 hours straight from 7am to 8pm with only an hour break but they got it done!

15 hours later, we have a shed!

Barb has not been out turkey hunting again. Since her last adventure the turkeys have been pretty much nonexistent. Maybe they got wise to her intentions and headed the other direction. The deer on the other hand have been everywhere! They are taking advantage of the lush green grass and have been around almost constantly. We counted 13 at one time Thursday night after coming home from dinner. They are getting really used to our presence just watching us from a safe distance as we would working around the yard. We thought that was pretty cool until we got a picture from the Jordan’s who had to “one up” our deer tales with a tale of their own.

Jim was outside working when a group of curious deer started getting closer and closer to him. Jim turned around to face them and eventually one walked right up and smelled his hand!

Jim Jordan, the Deer Whisperer!

But Barb has been “hunting” so to speak as she continues to get the prairie dog population under control. In fact she made quite the impression on the neighbors one day they will not soon forget. I was over at their place next door helping Doug put siding their cabin when we notice their young son looking over at our property with a look of horror on his face. That is when we noticed that Barb has taken this whole prairie dog thing to a new level when we saw her running through the prairie with a shovel over her head chasing, you guessed it, a prairie dog! I have to say, I was impressed with her skills, the prairie dog would weave left and she would go left, the prairie dog would dodge right and she was right on top of him. I know you are all wondering if she got it. I will leave out the details but will say, if you are near Barb when she has a shovel in her hand, don’t piss her off, her aim is very accurate!

Don't mess with Barb when she is carrying a shovel!

We have been continuing to explore the area restaurants taking our neighbors Doug and Lisa to Wooley’s in Hot Springs as a thank you for letting us use their shed. We also went to Mac’s in Custer and our Thursday night dinner with the gang was at Buglin Bull. This week Vicki and Harry, the Jordan’s were able to attend along with Rudee, Phil, Sue and Larry.

We got together with Vicki, Harry, Jim and Brenda once again as we hosted a happy hour at our place Saturday. It was a bit windy but the temps were up in the 60’s so we were able to enjoy a nice afternoon of burgers and beer. Vicki and Harry were able to bring their two dogs so everyone had a great time visiting and running around. Well, Daisy, Sadie and Buster had a good time, Dakota, not so much.....

We went to get doctor check ups the other day. We found a doctor in Hill City that was covered under our medical plan and bonus, it was the one that Phil and Rudee recommended! It had been a few years since I have been in and with the exception of my cholesterol he said I was an exceptional example of a human being.....well maybe I am stretching the truth a little.  Barb has had vertigo for since our Alaska trip 2016 so this doctor sent her to a physical therapist who had her do some movements with her head that he said would help. She returned home that day sicker and dizzier than she has ever been. She said the treatment was horrible and described how dizzy and nauseous she got as the therapist manipulated her head. Since that session did not work she was asked to return two days later. I drove her to this treatment in case she experienced the same results but when she walked out 45 minutes later she was all smiles and said she was cured! She is now able to lay on her left side for the first time in almost 2 years!

The biggest surprise of the week was when Kevin arrived from Wisconsin with his girlfriend Cheryl. It was great to finally meet her. We had heard a lot about her from Kevin but this is the first time we had the opportunity to meet face to face. We hung out for two days taking a drive through Custer State Park where we got some great wildlife pictures.

This is the first Mountain Goat we have seen since we have been here

Herd of elk hanging out on a hill side

They released the burros 4 days ago after they recovered from injuries sustained from the recent fire. 3 burros suffered fatal injuries while the remaining 6 were burned. After many weeks of rehabilitation they (along with 2 that were previously sold and donated back to the park) were back wandering and enjoying the green grass. 

You could tell a few of the burros were still recovering from their burns

While we were on this adventure we received a text from the Jordan's saying their rig were getting pounded with hail. For those of you who are familiar with this area, you know that hail is very common and evident in all the dented vehicles and steel buildings. Our building did not sustain any damage but I fear it is just a matter of time.  

We also went into Keystone where we went to dinner at Guadalajara Mexican restaurant. We were joined by Hill City friends Richard and Cheryl we had a great time over a great meal and great conversation.

But the biggest surprise of the weekend was when Kevin and Cheryl returned from walking his property. We never realized it but there are precious stones on his property but when they returned Cheryl had a new diamond on her left hand! Congrats guys!

Thanks to everyone who reads this and got us to 500,000! Our next goal is 100 followers, we are at 65 right now so we have a ways to go. Well, this pretty much wraps our first visit to South Dakota as we head 8 hours north to the Finken/Sobieck farm for the next month to visit and assist them with their spring planting activities!

A Tale of Breweries and Caves

The weeks started with a flurry of activity when friends Dale and Ruth flew into town for a weekend visit. Little did they know they would be leaving sunny Las Vegas and flying right into a blizzard! Saturday morning we made plans to meet up at Wind Cave National Park for a cave tour.

A bridge on the Michelson trail on our way to see Dale and Ruth

The Wind Caves are thought to be over 320 million year old has over 140 miles of caves but it is all compressed vertically within a 1 ½ square mile area with the deepest known point being 654' below the surface.

We took the Natural Entrance tour. We had been on this tour here last year but luckily this one was totally different both in the tour route and the tour guide and much better than last time. The tour lasted about 1 ½ hours has over 150 stairs and descends over 200' under ground. 

Barb and I with Ruth and Dale

The predominant formation within the cave is Boxwork which is formed when sediment seeps into cracks in limestone and hardens then the limestone dissolves over time just leaving the sediment boxwork. 

After the cave tour we drove to Hill City for lunch at the Bumpin Buffalo. Food was good but we will probably not go back. From there we headed over to the Sick and Twisted Brewing Company. This is a unique brewery with some pretty creative names for their brews. For example, my favorite was the Hump'her Honey Wheat while Barb's was the Nut Hugger.

They also have a winery attached to the same building Naked Winery with some equally interesting names. 

This interesting sign was in the restroom

Two days later we got together with Vicki and Harry fellow full-timers who recently arrived in Hill City for their summer work gig. They will be working at Prairie Berry Winery as "Wine Slingers" serving wine in their tasting room. Jim and Brenda joined us as we met them at The Miner Brewing Company which is actually a sister company to Prairie Berry.

The next two hours was filled with laughs and great conservation as we sampled many of their brews. The overall favorite of the group was the Maple Brown Porter while mine was the Miner Wheat.

The rest of the week was filled with work around the ranch; putting the finishing touches on the fences, getting caught up (again) with the prairie dogs, limbing trees and measuring out the exact layout of the house so we can begin digging in the drains and other plumbing within the house. This is tedious and time consuming work as if I am off by just an inch or two it can affect the entire layout of the house.

Speaking of the house, here is a sneak peak of the layout as it stands right now. Some people call it a "Shouse", some call it a Barndominium" but it is a structure with a large steel structure with the front third serving as the living area and the back a large garage area for the rig and vehicles.

The building site is tucked on the edge of the woods to protect it from the winds and provide a view down a small valley.

Parts of us want to get it going and finished as fast as we can while others are not ready for us to become part-time RV'ers. As of right now we are sticking to our 5 year build plan as there is just so much out there still to explore!

Turkey Time in South Dakota!

Since being back in South Dakota this week we had yet to see a turkey on our property. They were still all in their winter flocks of 70+ well off our property but when I woke up Tuesday morning and heard gobbling within a mile of our rig I knew I had a chance! I was in the blind 30 minutes later with 3 decoys set out to entice these wily birds into bow range. Over the next two hours I called and called trying to sound like the sexiest hen in the woods enticing the gobblers to check me out.

Soon I could hear the gobbling toms getting closer and closer and over the hill popped a hen followed by 5 strutting toms! It was amazing just watching the toms strut behind that hen trying to impress her.

Turkey hunting has been a passion of mine for many years and one of the things that attracted us to this area was the amount of wildlife and one of those was the turkeys! There are several varieties of turkeys across the country. Back in Wisconsin we had the species called Eastern turkeys, this area of South Dakota predominantly has the Merriam turkeys.

What? You thought a turkey was a turkey? There are actually 5 sub-species of turkeys across the U.S. 6 if you count those turkeys who were not particularly discriminant with whom they breed and cross breed.  Over the years I have been lucky enough to harvest two of these sub-species, the Eastern and Merriam, well, 3 if you count the cross bred birds commonly referred to as “Dirty Birds” as they are not really a distinct sub-species yet. All my birds have been with bow and arrow as bow hunting is another passion of mine. 

Turkey hunting can be very challenging. At times turkeys can be very appear very stupid, standing in roads or parking lots and standing in the way of vehicles. While other times they run at the first sight of a human over a ¼ mile away. The birds around here are a little bit of both. They will stand within feet of our rig and not care that the dogs are barking at them through the window. But try to sneak up on one out in the woods or prairie and you would swear that they read the memo and know you are after them. Add to this scenario that I am hunting them with a bow and arrow makes it incrementally more challenging as you have to get the birds within 20-30 yards. 

As the hen, along with her 5 suitors came closer and closer I searched for an opening in the woods and readied myself for the shot. As the hen passed through the opening at 20 yards I drew my bow back and waited. When the first tom crossed into the opening he was a full strut and I took aim and released the arrow. “Honey, get the grill ready, we are having turkey for dinner!”

Nice Merriam!

Carrying the bird up the hill back to the rig

Although that adventure went as planned, our big adventure of the week did not. Three weeks ago, a friend of ours Gary Thompson, father to Chad and father-in-law to Michelle owners of Pasha Lake Cabins passed away. We made plans to head to Minnesota on Wednesday, attend the funeral on Friday and drive back that afternoon. Chad and Michelle are good friends and we wanted to be there for them. Unfortunately the weather had totally different plans for us with 8-12”s of snow and 30+mph winds right on our travel route. With weather like that they will no doubt close Interstate 90 across the state. So unfortunately we had to cancel our trip but they will be in our thoughts and prayers. 

We intermixed play with the work by tightening about 1/4 mile of barbed wire fence along the back edge of the property, attending to the return of the prairie dogs, taking a load of posts over to Kevin's property and getting out to eat with Phil/Rudee and Larry/Sue to Maria's Mexican restaurant in Hill City.

As we were on our way to Kevin's we came upon a truck parked sideways across the road. As we approached he flagged us down and told us they were doing some blasting ahead trying to get a rock off the edge of the road so they could straighten out the road a little. Soon we heard warning sirens and then the earth shook beneath our truck as the explosives went off. 

He let us go ahead and as we rounded the corner we saw the dislodged rock and a blast mat in the road. 

We also went to town a couple of times to get water. Although we have a cistern full of water I need to get a pump setup in place before I can get it out and I want to wait until the freezing temps are done before I do that. So instead we went to the water station in Custer to fill our barrel. Most towns in the area have water fill stations since many of the residents have cisterns instead of wells or rural water. The Custer location charges $0.25 for 25 gallons. 

The adventures continued with a trip out to our favorite steam for a few hours of fly fishing. Barb out fished me once again catching 3 to my 1. Two of hers were big enough for the frying pan so we were able to enjoy a nice trout dinner!

Being a little higher in elevation there was still a lot of snow in the area so much so that there were some ice shelves over the stream. One time I looked across the water and noticed that Barb was on one of these shelves and was actually standing over the water. I debated the pros and cons of telling her. On one hand she was out fishing me and it would make a great video/story if the ice shelf was to give way. On the other hand, I like to eat and sleep in bed…..decisions decisions….. So I did what any good husband would do, I got out the camera to document it should something go wrong!

I was going to tell her to about an old indian trick of jumping up and down to attract the fish but in the end I told her she might want to move back a couple steps and once again saved her life. 

With my bird in the freezer, it was Barb’s turn to see if she could get one with her bow. Although I cannot see the blind from the rig I could see a group of turkeys headed her way. I counted 48 of them marching down to her location. When she returned to the rig a couple hours later she had a big smile on her face and said that it was a really cool experience. She had turkeys all around her for over an hour. Six toms were strutting their stuff trying to impress the hens and she said a couple were successful and she got a little X rated turkey porn show! 

She went on to tell me that a couple of toms were coming within bow range and disappeared behind the blind and when they came out in front they were within 2  feet of the blind, she said she could have reached out and grabbed one! Way too close for a shot so those two went on their merry way. A little later a lone tom came within bow range so she drew back and readied herself for the shot. When it was in the perfect spot she released the arrow and it went just under the turkey. She said it jumped up about 3 feet and got the heck out of there! That was it for opportunities so we will have to wait until another day to try again.

Dakota was doing fine with her bronchitis, she stopped coughing for about a week but then it started up again so she got to go to the vet for x-rays and more testing. They did not find anything additional wrong with her so they put her on more medication and sent her home. The good news is that she lost 3lbs so far on her new diet. When she is resting you cannot tell anything is wrong but when she is playing and active she starts coughing. I am sure this cooler weather is not helping her at all.

True to her word Mother Nature hit us hard on Friday. The forecast was for anywhere from 5-12"s depending on where in the hills you are located. Typically this part of the hills is on the lower side of those numbers so we are hopeful to only get 5"s or so. We hunkered in putting our slides in at night to keep the snow off and only opening two during the day so we could get around the rig. Great day to work on the blog post and the plumbing diagram for the house.

Hopefully the snow ends soon as we have big plans this weekend with friends Dale and Ruth who flew into town for the weekend! (I bet they are glad they picked this weekend to come to South Dakota!)

From Oregon to South Dakota......

Our Oregon adventure complete, we said our goodbyes to Forrest, Somer and Lily and headed east. Surprisingly there are no straight eastern routes out of Klamath Falls towards South Dakota. Try as we might the only viable route we found took us southeast through Salt Lake City then northeast into Rawlins Wyoming, Casper and eventually South Dakota. 

We drove a total of 1,272 miles and 22 ½ hours (10 ½, 8 ½, and 3 ½) over the next three days trying to miss two different snow storms. Our first night brought us to West Wendover, Nevada. The same exact route Forrest and I had taken two weeks before. We stayed in the parking lot of one of the casinos with about a dozen other trucks and RV’s.

Wendover Will was there to welcome us!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful with the exception of a cattle drive and a wildfire. The cattle drive was pretty cool and stretched for a mile or more. 

The cattle stretched for quite a long ways down the road

 Most of the cattle seemed to know what to do and where to go. The young calves kept the cowboys busy though as they brought up the rear and did not have a clue what they were supposed to be doing. Instead they were running from one side of the road to the other and not down the road like they were supposed to. 

Trying to keep the calves under control

 From afar the wildfire did not look too big but as we got closer we could see that it had started at an isolated spot near the road and quickly spread from there. There were numerous fire trucks and other emergency personnel there trying to keep it from spreading any further.

The Walmart in Casper Wyoming is a familiar stop over spot as we have stayed here about ½ dozen times on our way back and forth across the west. They had a significant snowstorm the night before but by the time we rolled in that afternoon the roads were fine. We were now only 3 ½ hours away from our property in Pringle and we had a decision to make. The forecast over the next couple of days called for 5+ inches of snow and temperatures dropping into the single digits. Two things we try to avoid whenever possible. On the other hand we wanted to arrive when the ground is frozen as we did not know the condition of our driveway and parking area and thought arriving when it was frozen gave us better odds of climbing the hill to our RV spot. So do we hunker down for a couple of days and avoid the snow or do we go for it and arrive when there is no snow and the ground is frozen? Well, if you know us by now you know we rarely take the safe choice so off to Pringle we went! 

3 ½ hours later we were at the gate of our property and who was there to greet us? Prairie dogs!  We thought we had gotten rid of those last fall! Well we did but not all of them on the neighbor’s property so they migrated west taking advantage of all the recently vacated prairie dog homes. There weren’t the numbers that we originally had last fall but enough to get us a little frustrated.

We arrived on a beautiful sunny day with no snow, that would change......

We were able to get up to our parking site with little problem. The ground was solid up to the point where the top soil had been removed just prior to our RV pad. Once we hit that we started to spin and slide, controllable, but we had to account for a little sliding as we hit our gravel pad. Once we hit that we were fine again.

True to word, the temps started dropping and the snow started falling the next day. Over the next 36 hours we got a little over 5”s of snow. 

The girls playing in the snow

We took advantage of the snow to burn a couple brush piles from clearing our building site.

Perfect day to burn some brush!

Thursday afternoon we got a message from Phil and Rudee asking us if we wanted to meet up at Hitch Rail for dinner with them as well as Larry and Sue. Do we want to meet at our favorite bar/restaurant for dinner? Heck ya! Both Barb and I had burgers which were as good as we remember them. 

With all the snow on the ground we thought it would be a perfect time to go for a drive through Custer State Park to see some beautiful scenery.

We had heard that three baby buffalo had been born in the past week so we were hoping to at least get a glimpse of one and if we were lucky get some decent pictures. We searched each of the buffalo herds as we passed them but could not find one of these little rascals….until…..we were just about to pull away from one of the herds when out of the brush runs this little baby buffalo. It was as if he/she was running out of the brush yelling “Here I am, here I am!”

Itty bitty baby buffalo

It did not present the best photo opportunities but we were happy to at least see one. We saw a variety of wildlife throughout the park, mule deer, whitetail, antelope, elk and of course the ever present prairie dog.

Nice herd of elk

Mule deer

Bluebird

Sasquatch

Little mouse sunning itself

Antelope

Evidence of the 84 square mile fire that swept the park was everywhere. Some areas were devastated, some just singed and other areas not touched at all. A lot of the area that was burned was grasslands and that was already starting to recover, much to the delight of the wildlife.

Scorched landscape but coming back to life 

Thoroughly satisfied with our adventure we set out for home and what did we see on our road just before our driveway? Why, it was the Jordan’s! But wait, why is their truck disconnected and the back end of their rig in the road. This can’t be good. As we pulled up we indeed did see it was not good.

Oh oh that does not look good

The recent snow had made their driveway pretty slick and the ground soft so as the front end of their truck slide off the edge of their driveway, the back tires of their rig sank in the soft gravel. And there they sat.

That really does not look good

They could not go backward as they would have got sucked into the pole but go it out going through the ditch forward

Luckily the neighbors down the road, Lane and Deb, were there with boards and chains and after much finagling Jim was able to get the rig back on the road and in our driveway where they will park until the snow melts and they can get into their site.

It is really good to be back here and we had an action packed couple of days. We cannot wait to see what the next few weeks bring!