Black Hills Trip - Day 3

Saturday, June 26th:  Wall, SD to Spearfish, SD

After a continental breakfast at the hotel, we headed back downtown Wall to experience, of course, Wall Drug.  The place is huge and you can lose a person in all the shops!  Misc. purchases were made, including "Equine Farkel" - which ended up to be regular Farkel except the "ones" on the dice were replaced with horses.  Nathan decided on a cowboy hat. 

 Where's your horse, young man?

Back on the road to go as far as Sturgis, where we would get off the interstate and head toward the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway.  After lunch in Sturgis at Subway, we kept going.  Our route took us through Deadwood and Lead.  We did not stop in these towns but were headed toward the Presidents Park, just outside of Lead.  This is a place where they have 20 foot busts of each president in amongst the Pondorosa Pine Trees.  Unfortunately, when we pulled up, the gate was locked with no notice or message of any kind explaining why it was closed.  We tried calling the toll free number and it went to something else and the regular number had been disconnected.  The website says it is "Closed for the Winter".  Oh well, on to the next thing.

The rest of the afternoon we drove the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, ending up in Spearfish.  It was a cloudy but nice day.  We took lots of pictures, a few from our first stop are below!

Continuing on the Scenic Byway, we came across Roughlock Falls, where you can not only see the falls, but stand in the ice cold water of the stream!

The water isn't cold, IS IT, Diane?!?!

Roughlock Falls

The evening ended with an unappetizing meal in a Chinese restaurant in Spearfish.  It was bad enough that Dustin had to wash it down with a DQ Blizzard (bummer).  Off to the hotel where we checked in and had enough time for some sunset pictures and a swim in the pool.

Black Hills Trip - Day 2

Friday, June 25th:  Pierre, SD to Wall, SD (via the Badlands)

After a continental breakfast at the hotel, we had planned to head up to Oahe Dam, 7 miles north of Pierre to view the dam and take a tour of the power plant.  The first issue was determining whether the tour times listed were Central time or Mountain time.  The time zones change down the middle of the river, so one half the dam is on Central time, the other half on Mountain.  It was finally determined that tours would be Central time since they left from the Visitors Center, which was on the Central time side of the dam.  So we headed out.  After finding the Visitors Center, we were bummed to find out that they were not doing tours that day because "something was going on at the power plant".  So, alas, there was no, um... dam tour.  The volunteer at the Visitors Center was annoyed because no one had told her there were no tours and she was frantically leaving messages for the rangers because no one had showed up on time to give the tour.  So we wandered around, took some pictures and headed to our next stop.  Below are a couple pictures of Oahe Dam.

Lake Oahe as it ends at the dam.  Water enters these 7 intake chambers and travel more than 3000 feet in concrete tunnels to the power plant. The water at the intakes is about 80 feet deep.

Surge chambers at the power plant on the downstream side of the dam.

The next stop was the Discovery Center & Aquarium back in Pierre.  More discovery center than aquarium, this was essentially a mini-science museum with various hands-on displays for kids and adults alike.

Nathan in the human kaleidoscope.  Which Nathan is the real one???

Off to the Badlands!!  We drove the Badlands State Scenic Byway that loops from Interior, SD about 30 miles to Wall.  Below are some pictures...  It was about 90 degrees going through the Badlands - the hottest day during our trip.

Having fun in the Badlands!

The day concluded by checking into the hotel and going "downtown" Wall.  We had dinner in a bar/restaurant across the street from Wall Drug.

Black Hills Trip - Day 1

Thurs., June 24th:  Crystal, MN to Pierre, SD

OK, I'm going to try and hit the highlights of our trip to the Black Hills with Diane and Nathan.  I decided to break this up into an entry for each day because there was so much to tell!  Here goes! 

Below is a picture of the back of Diane's Ford Edge when we left home.  Thank God for Back-Up sensors in the bumper because there was no hope of seeing out the back window the entire trip!  Thankfully, the passenger area was very roomy.  Even with the front seat all the way back, Dustin's long legs were far from cramped in the back seat.

Today was mostly driving as we first headed to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.  Having not been here before, we were surprised to see this was a multi-use facility with an auditorium/basketball court. 

Outside the entrance to the Corn Palace

Giving some love to Cornelius

Off to Pierre, where we checked into the hotel and went downtown Ft. Pierre to eat at an uptown cafe.  We found a park along the river to wander around and take some pictures.

 

The bank of the Bad River just west of where it empties into the Missouri

An interesting note:  The city of Pierre is in the Central Time Zone.  Fort Pierre (just across the river to the Southwest) is in Mountain Time Zone.  More adventures with THAT to come the next day (stay tuned!)

Blog Template Change

When I signed into the blog tonight while watching the Twins in HD, I realized they had some new template tools available, so I've been playing around with the result being what you see here.  I chose the backgound (picture out the window of a plane) mainly because of our ever-increasing love of travel, although not necessarily by plane.  As a sidebar, don't ask me how unhappy I am with plane ticket prices to Dallas in December! Stupid Delta airlines abandoned ship (or plane, as it were), leaving American Airlines with little or no competition.  Anyway, I digress...

Speaking of travel, we just got back from an 8 day trip to the Black Hills with Diane and Nathan and we had a blast!  I'll post some pics and a link to a slideshow as soon as I get through them all!  I'll only post the best because there are so many.  We even stopped at a winery and (of course) bought some wine that we SOMEHOW managed to find a place for in the back of the Edge - it was already PACKED!

Progress is being made on the basement again.  I see carpet in the not-to-distant future.  I think the fireplace wall is officially fixed, so we can keep progressing.  More pics coming soon on that too.

Birthday Presents!

As I sit and watch the Minnesota Twins annihilate the Milwaukee Brewers (we won 15-3), I'm reminded of my birthday presents! 

For my birthday on Monday, I decided I wanted Chioptle for dinner, so we walked (2 miles each way!).  We came back home and I opened my present from Karen which was tickets to a Twins game at their new ballpark (Target Field) and a Twins T-Shirt which I will wear August 19th when we go watch the Twins BEAT the Chicago White Sox!

Thanks, Karen for making my birthday awesome!

One Step Forward, Two Back!

Remember this picture?  The photo where the
fireplace wall was finished? 

It exists no more (well, temporarily, anyway).  So much for forward progress.  Actually, we've known this was going to have to happen for a while, but have been working with Fireside Hearth & Home, where we purchased the fireplace, to determine who was going to pay for this.  Thankfully, they agreed to foot the bill.  It's actually a manufacturer/installation instruction problem (Heat 'n Glo), but we'll let Fireside haggle that one out. 

When we first turned on the fireplace after we finished the wall, the seam where the drywall meets the non-combustible board that came attached to the fireplace, began to show a ridge because the fireplace behind the wall was expanding - and of course the drywall was not.  While the tape was holding the seam for now, the ridge was visible and would eventually break the tape loose.  Unbeknownst to us, there are additional recommended installation instructions with this fireplace that were not communicated to us.  It was installed per the instructions which wasn't good enough.  Bottom line:  Do over (!).  The drywall on the fireplace wall had to come down and be properly installed.  Fireside removed the non-combustible board that came on the fireplace and replaced it with Durock (cement board) and attached it to both the fireplace AND the framing.  This will prevent the expansion of the fireplace from affecting the seams.  Below are pictures in order from top to bottom.  We really had to hold our breath as we started ripping out the wall we just had finished and painted!!!

Plastic hung to keep the dust out of the rest of the room.

Ripping into our finished wall :(

Still ripping it apart!

Whew - Done with deconstruction!

After the Durock and drywall was reinstalled and the first coat of

mud was put on.  Brian from Fireside will come back tomorrow

to do the second coat.

Sinks and Countertops and Windows, Oh MY!

More progress on the basement! This weekend's projects:
1) Build up the base of the countertop.
2) Install window jam extensions and trim.

Check out the pics below!













Cutting the hole for the countertop














It's a sink!













2 layers of 1/2" plywood + cementboard.
Ready for granite tile!

















Homemade jam extensions













Trimmed out window

Happy Anniversary (to us!)

I can't believe we are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary today! In fact, I think I'm typing this during the time the ceremony was taking place! (Posting note: I typed this at 3:30pm. The post time is INCORRECT by about 2 hours). We will celebrate by going to Crave, a local restaurant with 3 Twin Cities sites and one in Orlando. I've been there for lunch, but not dinner. I'm looking forward to spending the evening with my wife!
Happy Anniversary, Karen - I love you!!!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Crave Restaurants

Trimwork

Part of yesterday was spent installing some of the trimwork in the basement. We could not do all of it since we are waiting for some cabinetry, but we got done what we could. It was raining out, so the saw was setup in the garage and there were MANY trips up and down the stairs!

Below are some pictures of some of the trimwork. The door trim is 1x3 pine and the baseboard is 1x4 pine. It is meant to "blend away and not be noticable". Everything had to be hand nailed since my air nailer only accepts up to 1 1/4" brads. That's only long enough to go through the trim and the drywall - not into any framing behind the drywall. So, 2" finish nails were used.

















Bathroom door all trimmed out















Patio Door all trimmed out














Installing the baseboards

Basement Update

Stevie the T.V
Stevie is a Samsung 46" 1080p LED TV (1.2 inches thin). Model #UN46B7100. Purchased at Best Buy last August when it was on sale for over $1000 off MSRP.

Well, it's time for an update on the basement. Above is a picture of the TV, mounted by yours truly after there was a "misunderstanding" about what delivery option came free with the TV, but it ended up to be OK. The best part was that all the planning and measuring that went into the inset the TV is mounted in paid off. It fits perfectly!

Main wall color: Lenox Tan (Benjamin Moore) Matte Finish
Fireplace & TV wall color: Chocolate (Hirshfields) Matte Finish

Below is a link to a slideshow of other progress pictures!

Click here for Basement Pics!