Celebrating Another Decade

Ron & I spent a few days in Box Elder, which on the east side of Rapid City, taking care of the paperwork to get our mail and become citizens of the great state of South Dakota.  Rapid City is a really cool "big little city".  The main street area has a lot of great shops, there are bronzes of all of the presidents on each street corner, and on Thursday evenings all summer the have a festival with music and food along the streets and in the Main Street Square. 
From there we headed west, where our old neighbors, Kelly & Charlie Kennedy have a place that butts up to Custer State Park & the Black Hills National Forest.  Kelly took me riding in the hills, and it was absolutely breathtaking. 

Kelly & Charlie took us on a great drive through the park one evening where we saw buffalo, elk and pronghorns.

 

 

On Monday, I celebrated my 60th birthday! Wow, my 20 year old self never would have imagined that I would still be able to ride a horse at 60.

Ron & I took a drive out to the Crazy Horse Monument.  It was amazing to see - it is much larger in life than it looks in pictures.

 The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, began carving in 1948.  It was crazy how he built a stairway up the mountain and began carving it away with explosives and hand tools.  There is also a museum, Native American cultural center and the sculptor's original log home studio & workshop.  The whole project is entirely funded by private donations.  Zioldowski's family still works on it (he had 10 kids).  It sure would be fun to see it when it is complete, but who knows when that might be.
We enjoyed walking through the museum & the grounds and seeing some of the other sculptures by Ziolkowski.

 

Later, I celebrated in this very unique way!  CHEERS!

 



On Our Way to Custer

One last walk in Sturgis on one of the roads in our favorite walking area, Fort Meade National Back Country Byway, which runs through BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land.  There are a number of historic sites with remnants of cavalry life.  I especially liked the Fort Meade Post Cemetery.  It was set on a beautiful hillside and had many interesting headstones.  119 of the 200 burials in the cemetery took place prior to 1900 - the first in 1878, the last in 1943.

And, sticking with the morbid subject, I also had to pay a visit again to Curley Grimes grave.  He is buried along the road, under a tree.  The story is that he was shot and killed trying to escape when being brought to Fort Meade to stand trial for robbery. But, it was a little suspicious and the men who shot him were eventually tried for his murder.

His headstone reads "Buried with his head down, Just as he fell. The towering pines, Will never tell."

So, we left Sturgis as it frantically prepares for the big rally - bring it on, Bikers!

A Hidden Gem

At the suggestion of our good friends, Majid & Mary Alsayegh, Ron and I drove up to Rochford to Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary.  It is on a beautiful 200 acre ranch owned by the creator of the sanctuary, David Snyder. 

A plaque at the entry has a prayer, written by Dave, that captures his intention for Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary. "I enter this sacred space with gratitude.  I walk these pathways with love, compassion, tolerance and forgiveness for myself and all others. I honor those who have walked this land before my time. I ask that they join me in spirit and embrace and guide me while in this spiritual sanctuary."
Then you come to the beautiful bronze sculpture, "The Invocation" by Buck McCain.

The pathway leads you through beautiful aspen groves, a meadow full of wildflowers, past a babbling brook, into areas of towering pines.  There are bronze plaques with quotes from Gandhi, Albert Einstein, St Francis of Assisi and more.  Hand hewn benches are provided to sit and enjoy, or write in the notebooks provided about your thoughts.

After we walked the pathway, we were lucky enough to spend some time with Dave, and hear his plans to try to expand Pathways and make it available for retreats and gatherings.  I could imagine yoga retreats, or groups of writers or artists loving attending workshops here.  For more info about Pathways and for all my horse friends - read about the Seven Sacred Horses on the ranch: Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary

 

Exploring the northern Black Hills, Day Two

Yesterday, we decided to drive the loop from Spearfish down through Spearfish Canyon around through Lead and Deadwood back to Sturgis.  It's easy to see how the Black Hills got their name.  The towering Ponderosa Pines cover them and make them look black, which is so different than the buttes and mesas on the prairie. 

The canyon road winds through beautiful scenery, each turn with a new sight to take your breath away. 

This is Bridal Veil Falls. 

 We continued to the town of Savoy, where there was a hiking trail in to see Roughlock Falls.  It was about a mile hike along the side of a rushing stream.  I was trying to catch sight of the rare American Dipper, which is a little gray bird that can swim under water. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see one, but maybe next time.  

The falls made the walk well worth it. 

We still have a few more days left here in Sturgis, and lots more to see. Back again later!

 

 

Exploring the northern Black Hills

We are camping at No Name City Campgrounds, just south of Sturgis, South Dakota.  The thing I was most excited about is there is a real grocery store in Sturgis!  There were only convenience stores in Medora, so by the time we left there our refrigerator was pretty empty.  Sturgis is buzzing with excitement as everyone gets ready for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, August 2-10.  It sounds like half the businesses in the town don't even open until a couple of weeks before the rally.  It is truly a town of motorcycles and the biggest bars I have ever seen.

 

What I didn't expect was how much there was to see here.  I had read about Bear Butte Mountain, so we decided to drive out and try the hike up to the summit.  It is easy to see why it is a holy site to many Native American people, as it rises out of the prairie.

I stopped in the welcome center and learned more about Bear Butte and its importance to the Native Americans.  When white men were moving into the area there was a council of tribes called to discuss what to do.  There was an estimate of 30,000 horses there, so imagine how many people.  It remains a holy site today and there are offerings on the mountain, like holy cloths and tobacco pouches hanging in the trees.

  Since Ron & I have been walking 5-8 miles a day, we thought this 2 mile hike would be easy.

Not so much.  The trail is narrow and winding, and before you know it you are pretty high up.  The views are spectacular - except looking down- that's pretty scary!

 

Being on the mountain gave me a

a feeling of why this is such a holy place.  It has an ability to awe you with its power, but is peaceful and alive with the magic of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medora - Last stop in North Dakota

I was eager to get to Medora because I had heard so much about it from my horseback riding friends.  It is located in what is called the North Dakota Badlands, and since I had seen the South Dakota Badlands, I wondered if they would measure up.  Pretty soon the landscape started to change and their were awesome views in every direction.

Medora sits next to the Little Missouri River.  It was founded in the 1880's by the Marquis de Mores and named for his wife, Medora. They lived in the Chateau de Mores, which is still there, open for tours.  It contains a lot of items that belonged to the de Mores. Theodore Roosevelt came to Medora as a young man to hunt buffalo. He loved the area and decided to become a cattle rancher.  He became a partner in the Maltese Cross Ranch. Later, he established a second ranch, the Elkhorn.   There was a horrible blizzard in 1887, and he lost 60% of his cattle.  He got out of ranching soon after, but his time in Medora helped awaken and refine his interest in nature and conservation. 
Today, the town of Medora has reinvented itself as a tourist's destination.  The town is full of shops, entertainment and historical buildings.  Some of the historical buildings are museums, some, like Joe Ferris Store are still in business!  Probably the biggest attraction is the Medora Musical, which is presented every evening from June 6 till September 7 in the beautiful Burning Hills Amphitheatre.  I had to drag Ron to it, but it turned out that he really enjoyed it.

The show tells the history of Medora, lots of music from country to pop and from way back to current day.  All of the performers were great, including the four legged ones.

There is a cowboy and  two elk on the hillside.  They used the hill as part of the stage and I was amazed to see the horses pick their way down on narrow little trails, even after dark.  The night was beautiful as the full moon rose overhead.

The other attraction that I wanted to be sure to see was the North Dakota Cowboy Museum & Hall of Fame.  It was a very interesting collection of items from a skeleton of Mesohippus (ancestors to the horse) to beautiful Native American beadwork and leather to old cowboy's tools and tack.  Everything centered around the horse and how important it was to the Native Americans (they call their worst day in history the day the horse was taken away from them by the colonists after the Battle of the Little Bighorn) and the cowboys who drove cattle up all the way from Texas.

The south entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park is just outside the city of Medora.  Ron just turned 62, so we were able to buy a lifetime National Parks pass for $10.  What a deal!  We decided to take a drive around the 36 mile Scenic Loop.  Wow, what a drive!

 

 

 

The scenery was jaw dropping and I couldn't even take pictures of some of the best because we were driving on a pretty narrow road with only a few places to pull over.  We also saw the wild horses that are supposed to be descendants of the ones living there when Roosevelt was there.  Of course, there were the prairie dogs towns and then

just as we were getting close to the end of our drive, the traffic stopped and when we looked ahead, this is what we saw

It was incredible!  Buffalo after buffalo filing across the road on their way down to a lower pasture.  I couldn't believe how many there were when I looked down into the pasture they were headed to.  It was quite the finish to our day.  So we headed to the deck of Boots Bar & Grill for an ice cold beer.

It was time to head south toward Rapid City, South Dakota.  As we drove through the southwestern corner of North Dakota and into the northwestern corner of South Dakota, we were amazed by the huge rolling fields of yellow alfalfa, hayfields full of thousands of round bales of hay and every so often a gigantic rock mesa would rise out of the earth.  The towns were few and far between, and it looked like most ranchers didn't have very close neighbors.  As we got closer to Rapid City, the Black Hills began to appear.  It was very clear to see how they got their name - the pine trees that cover them make them look black. Our campground for the next week is No Name City Campground just outside of Sturgis.  I'll be back with more later!

For more info about Medora:  Medora, ND

For more about the ND Cowboy Museum & Hall of Fame: Cowboy

 

 

 

 

Discovering North Dakota

Since neither of us had done much traveling in North Dakota, Ron & I had decided to head straight west from Fargo/Moorhead and see some of  the state.  Our first stop was the Frontier Fort Campground in Jamestown, ND, home of the world's largest buffalo.  Little did we know, our campground was right around the corner from it and the Buffalo Museum.

During our visit to the museum, we learned lots of interesting facts (no, really) about buffalo including:  a bison's forehead is made up of a double layer of bone and is covered by skin that is over 2 inches thick and fur that is 4-5 inches thick, they can run up to 35 miles per hour for up to half an hour and at one time there were estimated to be 30-200 million buffalo roaming Alaska to northern Mexico, by 1905 there were 500.  The Jamestown Buffalo Museum also has a buffalo herd roaming the large pasture adjacent to it.  They are very honored to have "White Cloud", an albino buffalo cow who has produced 2 albino babies.  We were able to see White Cloud a few times as we walked by the pasture.  There were also buffalo in our "back yard".  The campground had a male, female and baby buffalo in a pen right behind our camp.

The other attraction we visited was the Frontier village.  It was very well done with buildings that had been moved from other locales and were set up with tools of each trade they represented, for example, here is Ron in the saloon

There was a blacksmith, churches, railroad station, Louis L'Amour's writers shack (he's a hometown boy) and we took a very bumpy ride on the stagecoach.

We took long walks on a beautiful trail along the James River.  It was hard to believe we were only a few miles away from the downtown area.  One day, we decided to explore downtown Jamestown and found a beautiful Catholic Church that was quite old.  Afterwards, we met Hailey the bartender from Wisconsin.  She was a delightful 21 year old who had moved to Jamestown in the spring and was loving it.

After 3 nights in Jamestown, it was time to move on to our next stop, Dickinson, ND.  We stayed at the campground in the beautiful Patterson Lake Recreation Area.  As we drove in, we saw lots of signs of the oil industry and the thriving North Dakota economy.  Lots of construction, homes, apartments, businesses, roads;  long trains of oil tankers constantly traveling the tracks.  There were several people in the campground who appeared to be living there.  The lake was large and seemed very popular for swimming, boating and fishing. 

 

We also found some really pretty areas for walking and enjoyed seeing the birds in the area.  I added the American White Pelican, Common Grebe and Yellow-headed Blackbird (haven't seen them since I was a kid) to my list.

We spent a day in Dickinson at the Dinosaur Museum and Pioneer Village.  The dinosaur museum was very well done with many of the dinosaur bones having been discovered in North Dakota.  They also had a fantastic collection of rocks!

We've had pretty good weather, lots of sun.  I'm sure you'll all laugh like my kids did at my tan lines on my feet.

Last stop in North Dakota is Medora, in the North Dakota Badlands.  Looking forward to exploring this area that I have heard a lot about from my horseback riding friends.  We also plan to buy our Lifetime National Park membership (only $10 for Ron since he just turned 62) at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.