Black Hills Trip - Day 5

Monday, June 28th:  Hill City/Keystone, SD

Monday started with a breakfast of a different sort.  Crooked Creek Resort, where we were staying, offered an all you can eat pancake breakfast for $3.00.  We were SOOOOO there.  They were great pancakes - each one the size of a Styrofoam plate!  We had our fill and headed to Mount Rushmore, just 9 miles away.  Below are some pictures of our time there:

Outside the entrance to Mt. Rushmore

Diane and Nathan

Your standard postcard picture of Mt. Rushmore

Once we got around to this view, we realized there could be a 5th face up on the mountain.  Seen here to the right of honest Abe, we affectionately named him "Monkey Face".

From here, we headed to Black Hills Glass Blowers, just outside of Keystone.  Two local glass blowers work out of their small (and very HOT) studio, which could be seen from the 1880's train ride the day before.  We had not called ahead to find out when/if they were doing any blowing that day, but boy, did we get lucky- they had just started when we got there.  If you haven't seen someone do this, put it on your list of things to do.  We were all fascinated.  Over the next hour or so, we watched a chunk of molten sand turn from what we thought was going to be a glass into what we thought was going to be a vase into what ended up to be a decorative platter, much like the picture below:

Karen and I found a decorative bowl and a Christmas ornament we liked, so we purchased them:

From here, we headed for Rushmore Cave.  This cave was discovered by miners in the mid-1870's.  Although no gold was found here, several rooms were discovered containing various forms of stalactites, stalagmites and columns.  We took the 1-hour tour which took us through narrow passages and sometimes up and down steep steps to view several of the rooms in one part of the cave system.  Below are some pics:

Stalactites on the ceiling of one of the rooms

A "ribbon" form of a stalactite

More stalactites

This was formerly a column (where a stalactite and a stalagmite meet), but it was later separated by an earthquake

Back into Keystone for some nourishment.  We ate outside on the covered porch of the Railhead Family Restaurant.  Nathan ate his first Buffalo Burger, which he darn near inhaled!   Apparently, it was good!  

The last stop of the day was back to Mt. Rushmore for the night lighting ceremony.  We were disappointed they were not doing fireworks this year because it had been too dry. 

During the lighting ceremony, they invited all current and veteran service men & women on stage to be honored

Six of the service men were invited to assist in lowering and folding the flag, which concluded the ceremony

Mt. Rushmore lit at night (duh)

Back to our cabin at Crooked Creek, where we spent the night.

 

Black Hills Trip - Day 4

Sunday, June 27th:  Spearfish, SD to Hill City, SD

Another hotel, another free continental breakfast...  Off to Rapid City where we wanted to get a tour at the Black Hills Gold Factory Outlet store.  The tour was to show you how they design and make various Black Hills Gold jewlery.  Unfortunately, the literature made no mention of the fact there were no tours on weekends and holidays.  Grrrrr.  The sales person seemed to not really care when we voiced our disappointment that the literature didn't mention there were no weekend tours.  Instead, she offered to have us watch a 7 minute video on the process, which wasn't really the equivalent of a tour, but oh well.  Diane purchased a ring and a necklace here and we were off to the next stop.  A couple miles down the road we stopped at the Prairie Berry Winery.

As you can imagine, Nathan was a little bored.  So, he found a new friend (also bored) and they played chess.

The 3 adults proceeded to do some wine tasting.  We were helped by a very friendly Tasting Room Associate that made sure we were getting the most out of the experience.  After each getting to taste 5 wines (for free), we made our selections (listed below):

Phat Hogg Chardonnay 2008 — Our crisp, un-oaked, international award winning Chardonnay. Available Now.

 
 

 
Crab Apple -- Our wine is made from handpicked South Dakota crab apples. It is a delightful blend of tart and not-too-sweet. Available Now.
 
 
 

 
Red Ass Rhubarb— Our semi-sweet raspberry and rhubarb wine made from South Dakota grown rhubarb and ripe red raspberries. Available Now.
 
   

 
Blue Suede Shoes - A lush, sweet wine with deep bass undertones of fresh blueberries!  Sorry Sold Out until 2011. 
 
- We must have got the last bottle!!
 

We also decided to sign up for their wine club!  As a member of their Generation 5 wine club (Cellar Cru), we receive a 10% discount on all their wine (Yay, we can order off the internet and have it shipped to MN!).  We'll also receive 2 bottles of wine in each of the months of February, May and October.  We indicated we prefer the sweet and semi-sweet wines and we won't know the specific wine we get until the bottles arrive in the mail.

 

Next, we headed into Hill City where we ordered a pizza to go for lunch and walked across the street to the picnic tables at the 1880 Train station.  We had been playing our version of the license plate game, which was simply keeping track of the states we saw and betting on how many of the 50 states we'd see by the end of the trip.  Across the street from the pizza place, there it was - ALASKA!  One of the two states we didn't think we'd see.  Any bets on whether we saw Hawaii??  Keep checking back until the end of the trip to find out the exciting ending to this game!

 

After killing time wandering the streets of Hill City, it was time to board the 1880 Train. This train runs between Hill City and Keystone and back.  Roundtrip took 2hrs, 15 minutes.  Below are some pictures of the trip!

A fawn eating from her mother.  How Diane got this picture as the train was going by, I have no idea!!!

Hanging out the open air windows of the train car

According to the narrator on the train, the numbers on this barn have been dubbed "Lazy Two, Crazy Two" 

 Harney Peak (Highest point in SD at 7244 feet) 

 

A couple miles down the road was our hang out for the next two nights, Crooked Creek Campground & Resort.  We stayed in one of the cabins, which was basically like a stand alone hotel room. 

 

Nathan went for a dip in the onsite swimming pool and then we turned in for the night.  You'll need to ask Nathan about what "Oopsie-Poopsie" means and ask Diane why the letter "P" was missing from the pool sign (and how long it took for her to "get it").

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