It's Tourist Season!

 Living where we do, we are in the heart of the celebration. Mount Rushmore a mere 45 minutes away is having a huge celebration; fireworks and events throughout the week. Are we going? Heck no! We are in peak tourist season here and we do not even go to town unless we absolutely have to. There are RV's everywhere clogging up the streets. Out of state license plates line Main Street and don't even think about going out to eat. 

We did have to go to town however, to get a package at the post office. This might be foreign to many of you, but if you have a large package, we have to go to the post office to get it. No, the mailperson does not drive up to your door and drop it off. We do have an oversized mailbox which accommodates a lot of items but anything larger than that stays in at the post office and we have to drive 20 miles to go get it. 

But Rushmore is not the only tourist attraction, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Custer State Park and Crazy Horse are all within an hour of our house. Not mention The Badlands and Wall Drug a couple hours away. Yes, it is crazy around here right now. 

Think about how our country has changed and grown in 250 years. The first thing that came to my mind was farming practices from the horse and oxen single plows of the 1700's, the first steam tractor in mid 1800's, gas tractors in the early 1900's to the air conditioned, nearly fully automated equipment of today. 

Heck in our own lifetime we have seen the invention of computers, cell phones, and most importantly TV remote controls! I remember having to be the remote while I was a child, sitting next to the TV changing the channels as my dad said "Next, next, go back" as I flipped through the 6 or so stations, we had. 

I wonder what the country will look like 250 years from now when our great, great, great grandchildren (I think I got that right) are alive. One thing I hope for is that that generation will look back at how we treated cancer with radiation and think how barbaric it was. Do you think people will even have babies naturally anymore? Or will they be grown in incubators? Seems weird to think about today, but it is conceivable (see what I did right there?!?!)

The 4th of July is especially special to us as it is the day that our daughter Jessica was born. It is hard to believe that our little girl is 45 years old! She is celebrating while on vacation in Myrtle Beach with her family and our son Forrest and his family.

But alas, we live in today, so let's talk about that. We are continuing to work on getting the woodshed filled. We are better than halfway, but the high temps really put a damper on our motivation. 

Barb is about as far as she can get on the landscaping for now until we get more rock. She added two more juniper plants and some larger quartz chucks for some color.  

Dan and Bonnie came over one afternoon; we smoked some salmon and played dice games. 

They were down to their last few pennies, but they won and actually went home with some dollar bills in their pockets!

That weekend we drove to Spearfish to see Ryan and Alana and have a doggie playdate with Sophie and Loki. Ryan and Alana live on a golf course we spent the afternoon critiquing the golfers as the dogs played. 

A few hours later the dogs were all tuckered out.

They were even tired on the way home!

I did get away for one solo adventure when I drove to central Wyoming to scout for elk for my hunting trip in October. Talk about remote country, I bet not many of you have heard of Lysite Wyoming. With a population of 80 it is the nearest town to where we will be hunting. 

I have been applying for this tag for 9 years and finally got it! While checking out the area looking for a place to hunt this fall, I saw lots of wildlife, the most prominent being pronghorn antelope. 

Next was mule deer. I ran across a group of bucks and got some really cool shots of them.

But I was out there looking for elk of which I only saw one, a lone cow elk down by a stream. 

The area is mostly grazing land for cattle with thousands and thousands of cattle everywhere.

It is very dry out there right now so I focused on the many springs in the area thinking the wildlife would need to stay near water sources to survive. These springs popped out of virtually nowhere to provide much needed water to the local residents. 

There was plenty of other smaller critters living around these water holes; like this marmot and sage hen. 

Meanwhile back home I put out a few trail cameras. Lots of cows and a few deer......

Three weeks until Maisie Day! The Amazon driver is getting tired of coming to our house, but I think Barb has ordered everything she needs for her arrival!

The next 10 or so day should go pretty quick as we are headed off on another adventure!