The summer weather here is great. High temperatures are between 80 and 90, but humidity is low. Even 90 degrees feels tolerable n the shade. In the evenings, lows are around 60 to 65. We don’t have, and don’t need, air conditioning in our apartment. We use fans to cool the apartment at night, and close it up during the day. It is quite comfortable.

We went adventuring and had a great weekend. Highlights included a dinner at Desperados Restaurant. The food is only OK. But the prices were reasonable, and the restaurant name fit right in with the Black Hills ethos. We played mini-golf, saw local art, and even went to an amusement park. The park would be considered small by any East Coast standards, but it was a lot of fun. Danita and I went into a bouncing-seat simulator, wearing 3-D glasses and shooting at robots. (Don’t shoot the good guy humans!). With seven of us on the ride, we came in second and third. Not bad for a couple of old fogies.

Brule

For evening entertainment, we went to a concert by the Native American group “Brule”. And we saw our first rodeo. We’ll probably never understand how they score points at bareback horse riding, bronco horse riding, and bull riding. But I’m convinced that cowboys have to be totally nuts to ride a bull. Speaking of being old fogies, we were offered rides from the parking lot to the venue at both the Brule concert and the rodeo. Of course we accepted. The cart was a little bouncy on the gravel at Brule. I took off my hat and pretended to be riding a bucking horse.

Art – Painted bike – in the Dahl Exhibit

It’s back to work for us. We have to work 4 days in a row before we get more days off. How sad!

We did an overnight trip to Deadwood this weekend. I’m finally getting over my cold, with only a mild cough. But Danita is a full week behind me, so we’re still taking it easy.

Mt Roosevelt Friendship Tower (built by Teddy Roosevelt’s good friend Seth Bullock)

Deadwood and Lead were where most of the gold was found in the Black Hills. Deadwood is well known for being a rip-roaring mining town with characters including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Preacher Smith, and Potato Creek Johnny. The town is filled with tourist traps, kitch, and such. The town has had many ups and downs over the years. They solved their most recent “down” by being the first town in SD to allow gambling. Today, most hotels and restaurants have casinos. (Or maybe the casinos have most of the hotels and restaurants?) Today, gambling exists throughout western SD, with small casinos everywhere — even gas station / convenience stores. Either way, it’s nice to see the town doing well. It’s also depressing to see a casino when entering almost any establishment, complete with a completely empty series of machines with flashing lights. Or even worse, one half-drunk working a slot. I suppose most gambling occurs at night. We wouldn’t know for sure.

Wild Bill Hickock’s Grave Marker

We spent some time looking for a restaurant in Deadwood. In desperation, we finally went to the visitor information center and asked if there were any restaurants that weren’t a casino, a hotel, or having live music. It turns out there is one — Harry’s Wild West Spaghetti. “Harry” is the person who started the local radio station and ran it for 35 years. He was Italian, and loved having friends over for spaghetti. His daughter and her husband used his recipe to start their restaurant. One gets a choice of 3 pastas, 3 sauces, and hamburger, sausage, or chicken. It was good spaghetti. We hadn’t found it for themselves because they didn’t have a web site. We had a delicious dinner. With their name, it was natural that they had “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” on a continuous loop, with the movie soundtrack as their background music. That inspired us to watch the movie on Amazon when we got back to the hotel. It turns out to be very long (almost 3 hours) and somewhat boring. Our hotel had a beautiful “infinity pool”. Danita enjoyed the pool, but she couldn’t swim because it was very popular with the kids.

Homestake Mine Locomotive – from the Baldwin Works in Philadelphia

Danita visited her second gold mine. This one was large enough that I was able to do most of the tour. (I left a few minutes early, when the passageway got a little too small and some of the kids a little to antsy.) Our last stop was in the town of Lead, where we saw the visitor center for the Sanford Research lab where Dr. Ray Davis found proof of Neutrinos, winning the Nobel Prize. The lab is still active today.

Cool Clock Works with Controls for a 16-bell tower

Moon at Sunrise from our Deck

We had another week of feeling poorly. Danita and I were both coughing away. By Sunday, Danita was actually starting to feel sick. Monday, we decided to go to the medical clinic in Rapid City (only an hour away!) and see what the good medical people had to say. They decided we have a virus and there’s not much they can do for us. They gave us some Tessalon Pearls which are supposed to help with the coughing. We did some shopping and went home. It wasn’t much of a day, We spent the rest of the day reading library books.

At Sylvan Lake

Tuesday we felt a little better and decided to go to one of the lodges in Custer Park for Breakfast. The breakfast was just so-so, but it felt good getting out. After breakfast, we took a one-mile hike around Sylvan Lake. We didn’t see any wildlife, but it’s quite a beautiful area. It was an easy walk, well within our capabilities. It felt good being out in the sun for a little while. After our walk, we drove on Needles Highway. We stopped at several lookouts and even did a little easy walking. On the way home, we stopped at the local burger place and had some amazingly good hamburgers.

Rock Window at Sylvan Lake

Today was our big day out. We went back to Rapid City and visited a couple of local museums. It rained during the day, but we managed to be either in the car or in a museum every time it rained. The original plan was to see a Rodeo this evening, but we headed home home early and had dinner at home. It’s early to bed for me tonight. I’m still coughing, and we have 4 days of cave tours coming up.

Cathedral Spires on Needles Highway

Our first confirmed Elk

I got a cold this week. I was feeling kinda OK Friday, kinda not OK Saturday. By Sunday I was pretty down. I actually told the lead ranger I couldn’t do my scheduled patio talk and took a nap instead. I’m feeling better now, but of course Danita is coming down with her version. It’s a strange experience living in this area. Many of the restaurants are closed in the winter. In the summer, the good ones are mobbed. So it turns out the locals almost  never get to eat dinner out. Go figure. We’ve given up on eating dinner out in Custer. Fortunately, we get up early so it’s easy to get a nice breakfast when we want.

More Custer Buffalo

We had a laid back weekend. Monday we took an early drive through Custer Park and saw some more wildlife, then went to a breakfast brunch. Tuesday we went back to Custer for the 4th of July parade. It was about half an hour long, but it was fun to see the fire trucks, veterans, and kids going down the street. We went back home, then went back to Custer in the evening for the fireworks. It was a nice show.

Alpine Toboggan

Today we went to Keystone. We started with some mini-golf. Danita visited a gold mine. (I tried, but the shaft was way too small for my comfort.) Then we decided to ride an overhead tram. While we were riding up, I saw people coming down in a toboggan. We hadn’t plan to ride it, but it looked like a lot of fun so I upgraded my ticket to take the toboggan on the return trip. I had so much fun that I took the whole ride a second time. Danita was happy to watch.