Our Summer Vacation, Part 2 - We Just Wanna Have Fun

After our big adventure atop Mt. Rushmore, we hooked up with Paul & Vicki, friends from Pantano Christian Church Motorcycle Life Group, who happen to be work-camping for the summer just 8 or 10 miles away. They took us on a road trip through the Black Hills, with our first stop being . . .

Sturgis! Since we didn’t bring our motorcycle, everyone piled into our rental car. Sturgis was a neat little town, but Sam and I are glad we missed the big motorcycle rally in August. We aren’t fond of masses of people or crazy bikers. But I did get the t-shirt!

Up the road, we saw the Roo Ranch (sorry, Roo, we didn’t go in).

In Belle Fourche, SD, we found the “Geographic Center of the Nation”.

Then Sam learned the actual spot is 20 miles further on a gravel road, in the middle of a field. They just put the marker in town. But we came close! We ate lunch in Deadwood, drove down beautiful Spearfish Canyon, and had a great time with our friends.

Paul & Vicki’s campground, Spokane Creek Resort, is on narrow, winding Iron Mountain Road. Hairpin curves, pigtail bridges and granite tunnels framing views of Mt. Rushmore make it one of the most scenic roads in the Black Hills.

Just 16 or 17 miles from Rushmore is Crazy Horse Memorial, a fascinating place.

It’s a big chunk of mountain and is going to take forever to finish carving. Built entirely with private donations, it’s been 55 years in the making so far.

Another day we visited Reptile Gardens, one of many roadside attractions between Mt. Rushmore and Rapid City.

Loved the atrium and a chance to hold a snake!

Wherever we go, Sam finds beautiful flowers to shoot with the macro setting on our little camera.

There was an alligator show . . .

And a baby alligator, with his mouth taped safely shut.

Weren’t these guys in “The Jungle Book”?

I think this beautiful Anaconda was the biggest snake, but Sam spotted the most poisonous. Called a Taipan from Australia, the venom from one bite is powerful enough to kill 150 people! Fortunately, they were all behind glass. The people and the snakes. Click here for more reptiles! Reptile Gardens.

This giant tortoise, aptly named Methuselah, was celebrating his 128th birthday. I rather liked the other big guy in the picture.

We popped in to see the prairie dog town . . .

Where Sam waited patiently to capture a ferocious brawl between two rival rodents.

Our favorite show featured birds of prey, which swooped over our heads flying from one handler to another.

The bald eagle was especially popular.

But this guy had the most visitors – hold out a folded dollar bill and he takes it from your hand in a flash and stuffs it in the donation box.

Another favorite vacation pastime involves food. Sam found the Piece of Cake Bakery & Café in Rapid City and consumed this peanut butter concoction in honor of his friend, Johnny, whose favorite saying is “piece-a-cake”.

Not to be outdone, my birthday dessert was a chocolate buffalo, which we admired then quickly devoured.

We soon found ourselves in need of a diet.

But found that a different perspective works just as well!

A few more vacation photos coming next week . . .

Our Summer Vacation 2009

A couple weeks ago we went on a week-long vacation to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills in South Dakota. Wow, what a beautiful area of the country! A few months ago, we had the good fortune to get to know Nick & Carolyn Clifford, who live at our RV resort, Far Horizons, in the winter and Rapid City, SD during the summer. They peaked our interest in Mount Rushmore, with Nick’s stories of working as a winchman and driller on the famous faces in 1938-1940, beginning when he was 17. He even wrote a book about it! Mount Rushmore Q&A. Nick is the last surviving workman from the project.

Carolyn and Nick graciously offered to let us stay in Nick’s childhood home in nearby Keystone. It’s a beautiful little house, built in 1895 and restored in 1996. When we arrived, Nick was still working in the gift shop at Mt. Rushmore, answering visitors’ questions and selling his book. Carolyn showed us around the house and announced a change in plans. A park ranger friend of theirs was taking family to the top of Mt. Rushmore, and agreed to take us along!

We met at 7 a.m. the next morning at the memorial. What a sight!

The forested hills include ponderosa pines not unlike our southern Arizona mountains, though South Dakota has gotten a lot more rain this year. We followed the ranger along the walkway to a secret trail(!) up the mountain.

And what a climb it was. Scrambling over rocks, trying to keep our footing while gazing upward at the faces growing bigger and bigger.

Lots of breaks to catch our breath and look down on the visitor center and amphitheater.

Then countless steps ending at the Hall of Records.

We climbed past remnants of the 16 years of drilling during the 1920’s and ‘30’s.

And finally made it to the top.

Oohs and aahs as we looked down on the faces of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt is set back between the two.

The rounded hump on the right is George Washington’s head! Also a great place to rest, as Sam discovered.

Then everyone pulled out their cell phones and called friends & family! Above all, we were excited to be there, but it’s also one of the few places in the Black Hills where you can get cell signal.

Much too soon, the ranger herded us down the mountain and back to reality. But what a privilege to have been there. We will cherish the memories of that day.

More of our vacation photos coming soon!

Monsoon Season in Southern Arizona

The next few months of 2007, Sam was laying block almost from dawn till dusk. On weekends I came out to help. Mornings were sunny and hot, but after lunch Sam started watching the skies. July and August are “monsoon season” in Southern Arizona. Don’t laugh – it really rains!

Big white puffy clouds built up over the mountains, turning into steel gray skies by mid-afternoon. The wind started to blow, bringing rain clouds up from the Gulf of California. In the distance, about a mile east of the PPR is Mescal Studios, also called “Old Tucson East”. Built as an old western town, there have been numerous movies, TV shows and commercials filmed there, including Young Guns (1980’s) and Tombstone (1993). A friend of ours saw Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) and said there’s a scene that looks like it was filmed right on the PPR! A few years ago, we drove over to the town, but have never taken the tour, which is only available on certain days of the week. http://www.oldtucson.com/films-producers-directors/locations/

Back at the PPR, the wall of rain came closer and closer. Sam hurried to use up the last of his mortar and lay a few more blocks. As the first few drops spattered the ground, he rushed to cover up the cement and tools and jump into the car.

Many afternoons, the rain came down so hard it made little rivers in the desert sand.


Wind shook the car, driving the rain sideways across the landscape. Monsoon storms are spectacular in Arizona. We never stayed at the PPR after dark that summer, but storms in Tucson often include lightning flashing clear across the sky.

Within a few weeks of pouring the concrete slab, we ordered a 1,600 gallon water tank – on the internet! Coordinating its delivery was challenging, but Sam always figures out the best way to get things done. The semi truck was directed to the Ranch, Etc. store out by the freeway. It’s owned by our neighbors, Mike & Ginger, and Sam met the driver there to lead him to the PPR. It was also Sam who realized we had to get the tank into the well house before the walls got too high! The green behemoth is for water storage and will eventually serve all 3 parcels of land and the homes to be built on them.

The summer rains bring out a myriad of bugs and other creatures. Every year we see hundreds of millipedes all over the ranch, including a few that were almost 8” long.

One afternoon following the rainstorm, Sam and I took a stroll down our driveway and across the ranch. This tiny creature caught our eye as it scurried along on the ground. It’s a red velvet mite, less than 1/4” long.

Kind of cute if you don’t look too close, and it’s harmless.

This red velvet ant looks similar, but is red and black and runs a lot faster. Harder to get a good picture.

Over the next few months, Sam found other interesting bugs. This one is called a “walking stick”. If you get too close, he bounces his body back and forth to look like a branch blowing in the breeze!

These big grasshoppers were 2” long, and I loved the colors.


Then there was this guy, digging a burrow in our sand pile. God sure taught him how to move that sand – he’s a little bulldozer!

We encountered another interesting bug that summer, but we don’t have a photo, and I’m not sure how to tell the story…

You see, we have water and electricity at the ranch, but no “facilities” unless we borrow an RV for a week or two, and the nearest public restrooms are almost 5 miles away. Awhile ago, Sam spotted someone throwing away a kitchen chair that was missing one leg, and his handy folding stool needed a new top, so he cut out a piece the right size. He then wondered what to do with the rest of the chair. One rainy afternoon at the ranch, he gathered odds & ends of small lumber and built a frame, then sanded the inside edges of the hole, hammered a tent stake into the side, and voila, we had an “outhouse”. He took it down the hill among the trees so it’s out of sight of the neighbors. We keep a shovel nearby, and every so often we dig a new hole and move the chair.

Now, the bug I mentioned was the dung beetle, and we found that this outhouse area attracted quite a few. I won’t go into detail for fear of embarrassing ourselves, but it’s an amazing little bug that’s evidently created to clean up whatever we might leave around!

Our next creature-related post will feature the reptile population of Pumpkin Patch Ranch. Sam loves to photograph whatever creatures God provides!