Reaching a Milestone!

 Goals. They are what drive and motivate many of us. Throughout my life I have set goals. Daily goals of what you want to get done. Career goals, such as achieving a certain level. Personal goals like building your own house or out fishing Barb. This week we should achieve the greatest goal we have ever aspired to, one of the highest pinnacles of my life, only taking us 9 years, 6 months, and 22 days to achieve. What is this goal?  1,000,000 views on our blog! (Pause here for clapping, applause and balloon drop).

If you are a blogger, you cannot help but look at the stats on other people's blogs and see what kind of views and followers they have. I am often envious of how many views and followers many of my fellow bloggers have. As of today, we have 145 followers, that number has held steady +/- 1 or 2 over the past several months. That is a number that is hard to move. In fact, I had to beg readers to push me over 100 in August of '21. 

But back to the 1,000,00 views. On average we blog once a week, sometimes twice a week, sometimes every other week. In fact, this is our 456th post since we started blogging in February of 2014 (499 weeks ago) meaning we get an average of just over 2,000 views per posts. 

The reason we blog has changed over the years. At first, it was to inform other readers on the ins and outs of fulltime RV'ing. We found other blogs useful so we thought we would return the favor. Then it morphed into a way to keep our friends and family up to date on what we were up to. Today, it is more or less a digital diary with a little of what I consider humor intermixed in. If only we would have monetized our blog, I am sure people would pay $1.00 to read it each week, right? Heck, how about $0.10 or even $0.01? But alas, we have never made anything on our blog. I take that back, we did meet a reader at a brewery once and they bought us each a beer. 

So, what have we been up to this week? Not a lot. I've been slowly packing for my trip to North Dakota to help with harvest. Barb has been making me individual meals and cookies so I do not starve while I am gone. I also worked on the final touches in the gazebo; wired 4 outlets, installed a TV, bought and installed a fridge and moved in the propane firepit. Barb worked on raking the black dirt on the outside  planted grass seed and laid some straw to cover it all. 

Barb also bought some solar lights to go along our path. As I was taking the picture on the left, Barb notices this guy on the right. We call him Mr. Toad. Although, it could be a female toad, we call him Mr. Toad just in case he identifies as a "Mr.". We see Mr. Toad at least once a week. Sometimes by the wood storage area, sometimes on the hill where we have the extra tin for the gazebo and on this night, he was admiring Barb's new lights.... If you look closely, you can see him in both pictures. 

We have used the gazebo every night. So far, we have had two happy hours out there. One with Dan and Bonnie and another with Jim and Carmen. Needless to say, we are really, really enjoying it!

Now that that is done, we have set another goal. This one will likely take several years to achieve. We bought a book outlining the top 100 hikeable peaks in the Black Hills and we want to climb every one of them!

"Climb" may not be the right word. Some you can drive to; most have established hiking trails to the top and quite a few have no trails at all requiring us to bushwhack through the forest to get to. Regardless of how we get to the top, we wanted to get started so we started with a couple easy ones. 

So, we jumped in the jeep and pointed it towards Custer State Park. There weren't a lot of critters out, but a few buffalo and prairie dogs cooperated with us. 

Our first destination was Mount Coolidge within the park. It is the only manned fire tower in the park and is named after President Coolidge who spent 3 months in the park during the summer of 1927.

At 6,023', it is the 78th out of the 100 highest peaks in the area. Regardless of the rank, and despite the smokey skies, the views are incredible!

Bird identification time, any idea what this is?

From there, we headed west out of the park towards Cicero Peak. At 6,166', this is the 62nd highest peak in the area. There is a rough logging/service road all the way to the top. 

If you look off to the west on your way up, you will get glimpses of Beecher Rock off in the distance. Cicero Peak served as a fire tower location from 1940-1974. Now, it is home to a radio tower. 

It was a slow, fairly easy climb but well worth the view once you get to the top. 

 

Two down, 98 to go! We'll save the tougher ones for when it cools down a bit.

This week's homework assignment is to count how many deer you see in this picture..... They have returned in droves!

The trail cameras are producing nicer and nicer bucks.

When we were in Rapid picking up the electrical supplies and fridge for the gazebo, I got a new computer! We were at Sam's Club looking over the various models and as tempted as I was, I just could not get myself to drop a couple thousand on a MacBook. So, I got myself a basic HP for under $550. This one has a full-body hinge and bonus, a SD reader. You would not believe how many do not come with them anymore. 

Saturday night was a big night. The annual South Hills Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation banquet. As you may recall, Kevin and Cheryl are the chairs for the banquet. We went early and helped them set up, then returned later for the festivities. And, I was a big winner! I won a bottle of Blanton's in the live auction and the 2023 RMEF Commemorative Henry Rifle in a raffle!

Our next post will come to you from North Dakota. I am heading out Monday morning for a few weeks of harvesting and hunting! I am looking forward to getting behind the wheel of a tractor and semi, as well as just sitting in the reeds watching the sunrise as the ducks whistle overhead!