Tourists: Bad Lands Day Trip

When Bill very first got home on his last days off, before the grouse opener, before the Harley ride or anything else, we took a Sunday and played tourist.  We drove down to Wall and walked around a bit - it really is just a tourist trap!  Then we meandered through the Bad Lands (both of ours first time) on the way to check out a pheasant hunting spot.  Pheasant hunting will probably be pretty good over there, and after living here 3 years, we decided it was time for us to see the infamous Bad Lands. 

 

The Lands are pretty in their own right, but truthfully, I don't understand why the suicide rate and/or murder rate wasn't higher back in the day.  I just can't imagine spending months and months on a wagon train, to arrive in the bleak Bad Lands, with basically no water, no rich top soil and certainly no Eastern forest.  I do imagine after a nice rain that the colors of the dirt would really come out against a mirage of green - if the grass ever starts to look green in the spring.

 

To many pictures to post, so here is just a sampling.

 

 

 

 

 

To see the rest of the pictures, follow the link:

 https://picasaweb.google.com/105766033855540861970/BadLandsDriveSept92012?authkey=Gv1sRgCNiA16jmr_63-gE&feat=email

Ride....Baby....Ride!

Last December at our local Whitewood Volunteer Fire Department's fund raiser, I bought a Harley rental off the silent auction line.  Well, turns out, they won't rent you the bike if you don't have your motorcycle endorsement.  I let mine go years ago when I very first moved to Wyoming, as I just didn't think I really needed it anymore.  (Hind sight is ALWAYS 20/20!)  Getting a bike to use to take the test proved rather challenging as no one will rent you a bike if you don't have your license and buying one just didn't seam like a good financial decision.  So, my folks were kind enough to bring one of their bikes over for me to use to take the test and get my license back. 

 

Bill and I took a full day, and I had my very first ever Harley ride!  It was awesome!  We road from Rapid City, out past Mount Rushmore, over to Needles Highway, and up and over Iron Mtn. Road, back to Rapid.  Two of what is supposed to be the most challenging rides in the Black Hills!  We were able to get 2012 Heritage Softtails, and all I have to say is I was surprised at how easy handling these bikes were!  (Never having ridden a bike this big, nor a Harley, I was a little nervous about undertaking this ride on rented bikes.  It was all for nothin'!)  I am glad that we waited until fall to make the ride and didn't take it during the busy season.  Plus we were able to see the fall colors - even though on an unfamiliar ride, you don't get to look as much as if you were in a regular car/truck.  We were able to ride at our own pace and weren't pushed by anyone.  The few times other people did get behind us, we just simply pulled off and let them go around us.

Taking our first break at the look out behind Rushmore to see Washington.  The bikes really were comfortable to ride!

 

2nd stop:  Just inside Custer State Park at Sylvan Lake.

 

Pretty lake.

I road the white one, and Bill road the blue one.  The only difference between the bikes was that mine had the anti locking break system.  Man, Harley's have come a long way!

 

Nice ride Mr.!

 

Riding through the top tunnel on Needles Hwy.  I didn't take my big camera with us on this ride, sorry for the blurriness. 

 

Taking a break at the top of Iron Mountain Road.  After lots of twisty turns (that were lots of fun!) we were both ready to walk around for just a minute.

 

The rides.  If I don't get one, I will simply die a 1000 times over!  Ha!

 

Is that the Mr. or what?

 

Yeah, I look good.  I N-E-E-D one!!!!!!!!!

 

I have been blessed to smell the forest while hiking, riding horseback, skiing, mountain biking and now while taking my very first Harley ride.   I now have another level of appreciation for the finer things (God's creations) in life.

 

Life. is. G-O-O-D.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grouse Season opener

September posts are not going to be exactly in order as I've not had time to get through all the pictures I've taken.  I guess it's called 'Life'.

 

The grouse season opener was last weekend (and Bill was home!) so we loaded up the camper and headed a little ways east to a sleepy little town that had a sleepy little "campground" right on Lake Wagonner.  We weren't known as the first get out and get gone folks (but we were far from the last!) so we didn't get a lot of "hunting" in, but Casey did get to work some birds, we had a nice walk, with a whole lot of relaxercising.  We even.....wait for it..........watched a movie in our new camper!  Who says campin' has to be rough any more?!!??  (I never thought I would say such a thing!)

Camp is all set up, and ready to have a great weekend.  (Cell phone pic - sorry for the quality.)  Casey's thoughts on the two best parts of the weekend:  a) she didn't have to be on a leash in the campground, and b) she got to chase birds!

 

Had a good hunt, now it's time to relax.

Casey worked pretty good, and Bill got one grouse.  Unfortunatly, neither one of us had a camera to get a picture of her retrieving it.  Bad, bad, bad parents!

 

She needs to relax to you know!  (Again, cell phone pic.)

 

Sun rise over Lake Wagonner our last morning there.  Very pretty sight.

 

 

We had a great weekend.  We'll back to hunt that area again for pheasants.  It's hard to hunt with just two people, but this year is very important to get Casey some good work so we no doubt will be back!  Thank you Mr. Landowner for putting your land into public use.

 

 

 

Hunting Perch

Last evening we had a visitor in the edge of the trees.  I hope he found something that he thinks was tastey and I think was icky.  (Starts with an "s" and ends with an "e".)