From The Black Hills of South Dakota

The following was written about 2 weeks ago…I just have not had the internet time to get it posted until today, 8-9-10.  Sorry, vm.

We continue to enjoy mostly great weather in The Black Hills…we have had thunderstorms the last few days and nights and even some hail yesterday but nothing bad.  We have had a few days in the 90s but then we get some rain and it cools things off.  Where we are near Hill City the temps are about 10 degrees cooler than in Rapid City…Rapid, as the locals refer to it, is about 30 miles north of us.

We took yesterday to do some sightseeing with our friends Betty and Dave.  We took a short drive to Keystone before going on to Mount Rushmore.  In Keystone there is a museum dedicated to Gutzon Borglum…the man that began the Mount Rushmore project.  As we entered, there was a man working that was giving information to the people in front of us.  I really was not looking at him but when I heard his voice I looked up and told Betty that I knew him and I knew she did too.  It was Bob Griffiths and he recognized us also.  After watching the movie about Borglum we went into the gift shop where Bob’s wife, Eddy, was working.  I had asked Bob not to tell her that we were there.  What a surprise for all of us.  My Bob, Betty and I worked with Bob and Eddy at Adventureland in Iowa in 2005 in the retail department.  We are running into so many people that we know! Here we are, Bob and Eddy, Dave and Betty and Bob and I.  We have made plans to get together in a couple of weeks for dinner in Keystone.

Then we went on to Mount Rushmore.  Bob and I had been there once before several years ago but having been to the Borglum museum we got so much more out of it this time.

And you know, you just can’t get away from those Texans…these guys are from Austin…could you guess?  We had talked to an Aggie while lunching in Keystone.

Talk about a small world, while in Keystone we got a phone call…yes, my phone actually rang…from Chuck and Lorraine North.  Chuck and Lorraine were one of the couples that were part of the Alaska group last summer and we had not seen them since.  They are in Rapid City for a few days so we were able to have dinner together last night.  We always seem to work food into whatever we do. 

It was so good to seem them…wish we had more time to visit with them but we are hampered by that darn work thing.

Today we just hung around the park until it was time to come into Rapid City for Bob’s appointment with the oral surgeon to have 2 teeth removed.  He is having that done as I write. 

Here in South Dakota

Okay, so the job in Cody, Wyoming did not work out for us.  Betty and Dave were going to work for the Black Hills National Forest near Hill City, SD and told us about an opening just a couple of days after we gave our notice in Wyoming.  So long story short…I know, you can’t believe it…we applied, got accepted and arrived on June 14 to work at Sheridan Lake.

It is a beautiful area and we are hosting one of the loops in the campground with 39 spaces plus we work everyday at one of the day use areas that has fishing, picnicking and a small beach area.  I figure we are putting in about 10 hours a day total with 2 days off.  I don’t mind the day use area at all but I am not fond of being the police force in our loop.  Most people are very nice but you always have a couple that want to buck the system.  These are campsites with no utilities at all.  Fortunately we have full hookups at our site except for the fact we have no phone reception, no internet and we just got Directv a couple of days ago.  We have to drive into Hill City, about 6 miles away, to make a phone call.

Last Monday Bob and I and Betty and Dave rode the 1880 Train from Hill City to Keystone, SD.  I have no idea how far it is in miles but the ride is only one hour and it goes really slow.  Bob and I have done several of these types of trains before but I have to say this was the most pleasant.  The train going from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon was so slow we threatened to walk back.

When we reached Keystone we went into the gift shop and a woman walked up and called me by name.  What a small world…it was Rosalie and Larry…another couple we worked with at Adventureland and had not seen since 2005 or 2006…I can’t remember which.  How funny is that.  They are staying about a mile down the road from our campground and they work for the 1880 train but this was one of their days off.  They had friends visiting so we all got a picture together. 

That’s Larry hiding behind Rosalie on the far left.  Way to go Betty with the hat…cowgirl up!

Here are a few pictures taken from the train and in Keystone.    This house was almost hidden from view.

This is the Lazy 2, Crazy 2 ranch.

Betty was trying to mimic the way this dear old lady was shaking.

The next day we had to take Little Buddy, our Yorkie, to Sturgis for an appointment with an orthopedic specialist.  Sturgis is where the huge motorcycle rally is held every year in South Dakota.  It is a lovely little town that swells to thousands and thousands for the rally.  This tree was at the florist shop…someone had carved it with a chainsaw I suppose.

Back to the train ride…it was enjoyable but been there, done that.  Keystone is pretty much a typical tourist town.  There are places everywhere selling Black Hills gold jewelry…the problem is that none of the gold comes out of the Black Hills anymore.  The area is really lovely though.

Moving on.

Bit by Bit June 25, 2010

While still in Cody, we were in touch with an old friend that some of you will remember from our first year at Adventureland, Betty Bowers.  It seems that she and her husband Dave were working on the other side of Yellowstone Park in West Yellowstone.  We made plans to meet them in the park for lunch.  It was so good to see Betty again and meet Dave.

When we met Betty, she was a single lady that was workamping and traveling on her own.  We have had so many laughs about the famous car she bought while we were in Iowa.  She was traveling in a class C camper with no other transportation.  She decided that she really needed a car so she found one for about $350.00.  It was something to see but she only needed it for her stay of several months and thought she would sell it when she got ready to leave Iowa.  I think this was the car that kept taking…I know Don and Alex spent a good bit of time keeping it running for her.  More later about Betty and Dave.

I never tire of Yellowstone in it’s winter attire.  Even though it was the end of May when we got together with them in the park winter still had a hold in the eastern portion.  

This is my favorite…Yellowstone Lake starting to thaw.

On our way back we came across a female moose and her calf…the calf was in the bushes so I did not get a good shot of it.

I must warn you that the next shots can be disturbing.  We saw this bison being moved down the highway.  I am not sure it it was dead or just tranquilized but this was outside the park boundary.  I certainly have never seen anything like it before.   Sorry about that but I warned you didn’t I?

Moving on.

Surprise, Surprise June 19, 2010

Well, a lot has happened since our last posting.  Our job in Cody, WY. just did not work out for us.  There was such a high level of stress that the morning after I left work at 1:30 am (I should have gotten off at 11:30 PM) we decided to give our 2 week notice.  We loved Cody and most of the other workampers and our boss but it was just not the job for us.  Our employer was so nice and asked it we would consider another position but we were over it by then.  So, we worked our 2 week notice and left there on the 10th of June. 

Just a couple of days after we gave notice, we were told of a position with the company that manages the campgrounds for the US Forest Service near Hill City, S.D.  We applied and were told they had already filled that position but there was a volunteer position open that involved 20 hours of work a week for your site.  That sounded great so we accepted and told them we could start on June 14.  Well, before we even got to the job, we were notified that a paid position had become available.  So here we are at Sheridan Lake in the Black Hill National Forest near Hill City, South Dakota.

We are the Hosts for one of the loops in the campground…that would be Smokey loop.  We also work at the day use area that they call the south beach.  Our days starts with Bob driving through our loop inspecting our 39 camp sites around 8:00 am.  At 9:00 we meet the other hosts and our area manager at the main entrance booth for our morning meeting which usually lasts anywhere from 3 minutes to 30.  We then proceed to the day use area which is at the lake itself and has a small beach.  We sell parking passes to anyone entering this area for swimming, fishing, boating or just picknicing. We spend a lot of time sitting and reading.  It is a beautiful area and we can watch people fishing.

We close up shop at 5:00 pm and return to the campground which is only a short distance away.  We drive through our loop just to be sure everything looks okay.  Then we have some free time until the main booth closes at 8:00 pm.  We make another round about 8:30 pm and again at 10:00 pm.  Between rounds we may have people coming over to buy firewood or as happened tonight some campers wanted to plug into our electrical outlet to blow up a couple of air mattresses.  This campground has no hookups (water, electric or sewer) except for the host sites.  They don’t even have a dump station here. We have 5 loops within the campground so you can see it is a fairly large area.  Then we have the south beach area (which we cover) and the north beach area on the other side of the lake.  The north beach area also has 5 group camp sites.

Now for the real corker…WE HAVE NO CELL PHONE SERVICE, NO TELEVISION RECEPTION AND NO INTERNET!!!!!!  Bob says it’s a good thing because we don’t have time to watch television anyway.  We have to drive 6 miles into Hill City for cell service and to use the wifi at the library. I am slowly getting used to it.  We have no idea what is happening in the real world.  We will be off on Monday and Tuesday and plan to go into Rapid City which is only about 25 miles from here.  There is NO fast food in Hill City.  We went in to eat at a Mexican restaurant one night and they wanted $6.95 for chips and salsa…we passed on that and should have passed on everything.  I am cooking often!  I hear they have a Safeway grocery store in Rapid City…I am so excited.

It’s late and we get up fairly early, especially for me, so more later.

Moving on.  

Yellowstone National Park

So, we have left Cooke City and traversed the 4 miles to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone Natl. Park.  It would have been much closed had we entered through the east entrance but we had already made the drive from Cody to the east entrance so we wanted to see something different.  As of that time, not all the entrances were open due to snow.    

It did not take long before we passed a herd of buffalo…we saw so many that day.  You reach the point where you have to say “Oh yeah, more buffalo” and keep driving.

A lovely little stream. I love the water, especially rivers and creeks.

Anytime you come upon a group of cars parked along the roadside you just know there is a bear in the area…usually there is at least one park ranger in the group.  We were not disappointed…we got to see this mom with her two yearlings.  They will stay with their mom until next spring.  Black bears only keep their young with them for 2 years but grizzlies keep theirs for 3 years.  We watched them graze for quite a while.  The rangers made sure everyone stayed about 100 yds. back.

Bob spotted a grizzly that was running across the road in front of us but by the time I looked up from my map all I saw was his rear end going through the bushes.  He was moving very fast.

We made our way up to the Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park.  This is where the park headquarters is located.  The last time we were at Mammoth there were lots of elk there.  We were not disappointed.  These guys just walk and lounge around everywhere…they are not intimated by the people at all.

We wound around inside the park on our way out the east entrance that would take up back to Cody when we spotted this wolf. There was so much snow on the way out and Yellowstone Lake was still mostly frozen over.  The prettiest part of the trip was between Fishing Bridge and the east entrance but by that time my tummy had enough of roundy round and up and down so the puppies and I were laying down in the back seat. 

So glad we got to see a lot of the park while there was still so much snow. 

Moving on.

May 13, 2010 Cooke City, Montana…on our way to Yellowstone.

Yea, we have 2 days off so we decided to do some sightseeing.  We left the coach about 11:00 with Buddy and Cissy in tow.  We headed northeast out of Cody to make the drive along the Chief Joseph highway.  Chief Joseph led the Nez Perce people out of Oregon trying to flee the US troops who were attempting to place them all on reservations.  He and his people were able to elude the troops until October of 1877.

This was a beautiful drive.  I love the snow and we began to see deer very quickly.  

We had to stop for Bob to throw a few snowballs.  You can take the boy out of Indiana but you…

 

This little guy was scurrying along. It was so strange to see snow…and no snow.

As we went further, we entered the Shoshone National Forest.

The snow banks were so high in some areas it was hard to see over them to get some pictures.

While we are traveling northeast we are also climbing…our destination was Cooke City, Montana.  The northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park is located 4 miles south of  Cooke City.

Notice the top of the rail fence…what little you can see peeking out from underneath the snow.  We have now made it to Cooke City, MT.

So do you think this is a car under the snow?

Cooke City has a population of 97 people.  It swells to 120 during the summer.  We ate at a little place called the Bistro and had one of the best homemade hamburgers/fries that I have ever had. This was a shot from our table.

Doesn’t everyone have a snow blower on their roof?

More to come about Yellowstone.

Moving on.