Sunday, May 17, 2009

Getting "Settled in".


We are getting everything all set up and in its place here on our place in the Beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, near Custer. We have an extra refrigerator in our small shed, just as we do at North Ranch in AZ. Although we have a 22 cu ft Amana household refrigerator in our 5Th wheel, it's still nice to have a little extra room for both our use and any of our visitors.

The little Honda CRV even has its place inside the Garage. It doesn't know how to act to be inside! But I'll bet it enjoys being there on these cool nights and 27* mornings we have been having..... I've had to drag out the Blue Flame propane heater several times. However, this morning it's WAY up to 34*.:-) Before long it will be warming up,,,,,,as 90* is predicted in Rapid City this week. It's always much cooler here in Custer than anywhere else in the state.

This is the view to the North, those are the Cathedral Spires on the famous Needles Highway that you see in the background. If you look real close you can even see Harney Peak way back there on the horizon. People come from all over the world to hike up to Harney. It is an old NPS fire tower lookout. The notorious thing about Harney that a lot of people don't realize is that it is the highest point East of the Rockies in the USA. In fact all the way to the Alps......It is 7260' and has a nice 3 mile trail up to it from Custer State Park. We have been up there dozens of times and it is some kind of a NEAT view. You can see WY,MT and NE from there.
Speaking of hiking, we went out to one of our favorite "closest to home" hikes yesterday and did our first hike of the year. The first 1/4 mile is up, up, up, but then most of it is downhill or flat. It's just inside of the Park and only a few miles from our place and goes around this beautiful Stockade Lake area. Most of the elevations around here are around the 5000' mark, Our place is 5440'. It takes a short time to get acclimated to the altitude, so we kinda ease into it a little at a time. This weekend was FREE weekend at all the State Parks in South Dakota, Free entrance and Free fishing, so there were quite a few people enjoying the 60+ deg, mostly all locals. They have had a long, hard, colder than usual winter. Memorial weekend is sort of the unofficial start of the season and soon the out-of-state license plates will start showing up.

We had our FIRST cookout at the Broken Arrow Campground Friday night. It was great seeing our friends and owners Larry and Geri Gustafson again. Thanks for inviting us! We're looking forward to a great summer visiting with Larry & Geri and a LOT more cookouts. They spent some time riding ATVs in the Desert of Arizona with us just a few months ago. Remember their pictures on my Blog? They have about 10-12 RVs in their Campground right now and have more booked in soon. I'm not being bias when I say they have one of the nicest campgrounds in SD. Check it out! If you're looking for a place to have fun and spend time up here, Larry and Geri will make it happen. They are just 3 miles south of our place. Jim and Ellie they're waiting on you....see you in June.

So that's about it for this week from our place "on the hill". Many of our friends have been stopping by welcoming us back and we are anxious to go in to our "Cowboy Church" this morning and meet many more.

*JRoger and Susan, travel safe all that way from Florida and we will see you in a few days!

It was a GREAT WEEK!!!!
God Bless you all...

Mike

This Blog is published every Sunday and Wednesday morning.
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7 comments:

Unknown said...

Your place looks great, Mike! I hope we can come up and visit you guys one day.

Jerry and Suzy said...

Good morning! We're just about on our way to church also, but had to stop in and say Howdy.

We remember the Cathedral Spires from our trip around the Needles Highway. Thanks for showing us the distant view!

Enjoy your summer!

Carol said...

Looks beautiful, Mike and Pat. I am so sorry we didn't know Ty was going to be on Good Morning America although we have been pretty busy here---not to mention that we hadn't looked at that "episode" of DANCIN' so...........Warmer here than there!! 40 when we got up this a.m. Mike, that new blog I set up has had 1279 hits in 9 days!!! :)+

Rick said...

I really enjoyed reading your post this morning and being reminded of the "Needles Highway". We visited in the summer of 2007 and that was one neat road to drive over!

Jim said...

Howdy neighbor, Its good to see you guys enjoying your northern "home". It looks great after a tough winter. I'll see you in July.

Debbie Goode said...

Everything looks so wonderful there. Great photos. Sioux Falls just sent me notice that I was in the juror pool for the month of June---we may make it to South Dakota sooner rather than later....LOL!

Ellie and Jim said...

Well, now you've gone and done it, we were just getting settled in Colo. Spgs., but your post today made us antsy to get underway to Custer! We think Ellie can do a better job on a hike this year, hope you'll save one for her. Jim is looking forward to the cookouts, for sure!

See you in a few weeks!
Hugs!