Devils Tower, Wyoming

This is Devils Tower, it was very impressive. It was formed 60 million years ago when molten magma was forced into sedimentary rocks above it and then cooled underground. As it cooled it contracted and fractured into columns. Over millions of years the sedimentary rock eroded away and today Devils Tower rises 867 feet from its base and stands 1,267 feet above the river and 5,112 feet above sea level. The top of it is 1.5 acres and the diameter of its base is 1,000 feet.

People come from all over the world to climb it. It was our first National Monument, proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

Don't forget that you can click on the pictures to see them full-sized!

The light was at a bad angle on the picture of Larry and I but a man had kindly offered to take our picture. The view is lovely!

Monday in Wyoming

Yesterday was fieldtrip day. We headed out of Sturgis on hiway 79 and looped up to Belle Fourche. It was a cute old town with several antique stores. The drive through the Wyoming Black hills was really pretty. Green grass, pine trees and oaks, red dirt formations and pretty ranches. We were headed to Devils Tower National Monument, a very big column of rocks in NE Wyoming. I am putting all those pictures in a separate post. We had to stop in several places and take pictures of course.


We stopped in Aladdin at the only place there. It was an 105 year old store. It was not renovated which was nice. You go through historic towns, but so much has been renovated and then you go in and see sheetrock and the same old tourist stuff. But this store was looking all of its 105 years. Original floors, walls, stairs...everything. The cool thing was they had stuff in every room so you could go upstairs and see the entire building. Most all the plaster had fallen off of the lathe on the ceilings upstairs and in some places they had rigged it to stay in place, but most was gone. Under the stairs was just dirt. It was cool to see. Walking on the old wood floors that have been there for over a century!

We had a lovely picnic lunch under the trees near prairie dog town. It was forbidden to feed them, they become awful beggers. In Taos, NM there was an empty field next to Sonic Burger and they lined up like little soldiers looking pathetic and begging. They get real brave too.

These blue flowers are growing on this rock. They were at the base of Devils Tower. We had a nice walk around its base. It
was 1.3 miles around the bottom. We had pretty views of the surrounding countryside in a couple of spots.

We headed back to Sturgis on Interstate 90. The backroads are sooo much more interesting and pretty. Just have to be REAL careful and read the signs if you are towing! The prairies along the interstate were still pretty green. Growing up in California, we are used to seeing the hills brown by the start of May!
We saw a few antelope and deer along the way and a beautiful herd of mares and their babies running along and playing.

Had dinner at a chinese restaurant in Spearfish, picked up a few groceries, fueled up and headed home. Sat outside enjoying the evening as the sun set and then had to go in 'cause it started cooling down fast! Another day in Moniz paradise!

Rest of Flowers

The pink one is echinacea or purple cone flower, I don't know what the blue/purple spikey flower is yet. The blue flowers in front of the spikes are campanula.

First weekend of summer

Another weekend almost gone! Those of you who don't know me will soon figure out that I take lots of pictures. AND that I take lots of pictures of flowers, clouds and rocks. You, fortunately will only be bored with a small fraction of the pictures I take! I could torture you with the thousands of pictures I have taken just since we've been on the road these past two years. They are all wonderful of course...thanks to the delete button on my computer.

We had rain and cold Friday morning. Got 1/3 of an inch in an hour or so. The sun came out for a couple hours and it hit 80, but then the clouds came back in and more thundershowers. Yesterday and today have been gorgeous. In the high 70's, a teeny breeze and clear skies. This cloud picture is from Friday.

Today we walked up to the top of the hill again. Boy, that is a steep sucker! Near the top is a rock that I sit on to rest before getting to the top and then starting the steep downhill walk. Its a beautiful walk and I know it is good for me otherwise I'd tell Larry, "see ya"! He is disgustingly fit without hardly even trying...I've been doing yoga longer than him and I still can't touch my head to my knees! So today was laundry day and talk on the phone and just enjoy the lovely weather and fresh air day.

The pictures of flowers are some of what we found blooming on our walk today. The echinacea have just started blooming and the blue spikey flowers; I don't know what they are. I am amazed at all the stuff growing wild around here that I bought at nurseries to plant in my yard in Chester.

Problems with picture posting again, so the rest of the photos I wanted in this post are down below in their own post. (hopefully down, if not, above)

Off for another evening walk. Enjoying them while we can, we are told that when we get in Minnesota the bugs will be trying to carry us off.

Catching up!

These are photos of the Thunderfalls here in the Black Hills of South Dakota.


These are the stunning clouds we saw from our trailer the night before last!

Today we did a lot of nothing. Computer work, reading, I've almost finished my drawing after almost throwing it away the other day.

We took our 4 mile walk out on the backroad here. The county was mowing and the rat bastard didn't stop the blades after he waved at us as we walked by and a rock shot out and got me in the side of the knee. People just have no common sense at all...big machine, shoots out debris, people walking by...what do they think is going to happen???? I said a few bad words, I wasn't bleeding so I didn't feel the need to walk back through the flying rocks to rip him out of the machine and give him a piece of my mind! Hurt like heck and swelled, but after getting home I put my arnica gel on it and it started healing pretty fast. So that was the excitement for today.

We had some rain again last night and it has clouded up this afternoon, we'll see what happens. At least we aren't in Ukiah, talked to Andrea and it was 103 there yesterday and supposed to be 108 today. Staying in the 100+ for the next 5 days or so according to the weather forcasters.....yuck. We haven't even hit 80 today...very nice.

Pics on our walk

So, finally here are the pictues I took on our walk the other day. The wild turkey, the plant that I don't know and the lovely butterfly!

Happy Summer!

This is a lovely place to wake up to. We had the window open all night and as the sun came shining in our window there was the serenading of song birds and the rhythm of crickets. No trains, planes or automobiles. I guess I’ve gotten used to the rooster, because I never hear him at sunrise. So very peaceful!

We started the day with yoga, breakfast and then hit the road. We took 14A from Sturgis to 385 and took that to 44 into Rapid. It was a lovely drive. We stopped at the Thunder Falls. It was interesting, but they charge a lot for these things up here. We saw Carlsbad Caverns for $6 a piece in New Mexico and to walk 600 feet into a mountain along a river was $5.50 a piece plus tax! Some of the caves and mines around here charge $8 and up per person. Adds up fast! This was interesting to see. The miners had carved this mountain out 600 feet when their last blast opened up this river that came crashing through and put the end to their following their vein. An amazing amount of water flows through there!

We had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the wildflowers and fresh air. Absolutely NO SMOG. We ended back in Rapid where we went to Safeway for groceries, fuel and my Starbucks fix. Back home by 4. A lovely first day of summer! I have some awesome pictures I took last night of clouds at sunset, but I’ll have to wait till they get that photo uploading problem fixed. I’ll have to go back and add my photos later!

Scanner days

Here is a "pre-script": this server is having problems with their photo uploading, so no photos. They better get it fixed soon, or I'm on to somewhere else!

Monday we got up and did minimal yoga. We started out with hair altering. I cut Larry’s and hid the gray in mine. I am getting better and better with those clippers. Interesting though, his hair keeps getting shorter and shorter!

Lar started work on installing the scanner in the truck. He used a piece of leftover wallboard from the trailer remodel and spent awhile making a template. He has to redo our center console for the scanner and we MUST have cup holders, so he designed a cutout that will hold the scanner and has two cup holders. As he is the perfectionist artiste of radio installers it will look wonderful when he is done. Will look like it was always there! So it was design day. I helped come up with something to be our cup holder at the bottom of this gizmo. I putsed around on a drawing I am doing. I continually wonder why I keep trying to be an artist, I am totally frustrated with my endeavors most of the time, my biggest problem is I don’t practice enough. That needs to change, but I’ll stare at my supplies and then find something else to do…like clean the toilet or something else equally important! Weird. I’ve been trying to overcome this odd procrastination problem for a couple years, it is like I don’t want to mess up the paper or something!

So back to the importance of scanners. The one Larry put in the trailer has weather alert on it and we both felt we really needed one in the truck too, for when we are out and about and towing. No matter what channel it may be on, if there is a weather watch or warning released the scanner sends out a bunch of obnoxious tones to get your attention and then you get to hear the message. It is very nice to have, especially since leaving the west coast. In Yuma winter before last the warning gave us time to get everything put away before a violent thunderstorm came roaring through. Last night after dinner it popped off with a thunderstorm warning for our county and sure enough there was a REALLY big cloud where there hadn’t been one before.

The bulk of the storm went around us, but the thunder and lightning we did have was really impressive. Quite a few multi-pronged down strikes. The thunder shook and rattled everything. It went on into the wee hours of the morning. We got heavy rain and the light show was phenomenal. The lightning flickered several miles off for hours. It was like looking at your neighbor’s house with their drapes pulled, but you can see their TV flickering across the drapes. It was just constant and every once in awhile you would see the bolts in the oddest formations, twists, circles, etc. Mother Nature’s show is hard to beat! I’m not set up to get still photos of lightning but I did catch a cool one on video! It was hard to sleep with all that going on.

Today it is sunny and we took a walk to the top of the hill again. It was difficult cause this mud sticks really well and we had masses of it stuck to our shoes. Looks sandy when it is dry, very deceiving. The pictures are of the wildlife we saw. This butterfly was fun to watch and the wild turkey we noticed when I had to stop to rest. She had babies with her and she was trying to coax us along away from the brood. We saw deer, elk and raccoon tracks in the mud, but never laid eyes on one. Lar spent today finishing the scanner installation and I mucked around in my pastels and enjoyed our peaceful surroundings.

We have a chance of thunder storms tonight so I am trying to get this entry done before another storm. We loose satellite when these clouds full of ice and rain come through. Blocks our signal. Chores are done and the toilet is really clean…so tomorrow should be a field trip day. We need groceries too so we’ll definitely go somewhere!

Busy at home weekend

Yesterday we ran errands in Rapid. Lar for parts for our weather station and me for books and art supplies. After we got home we both worked on our projects. It was wash the rugs and floors day too. In this mansion that takes....oh, minutes and minutes! Amazing where I find the time!

Today we took a walk up the mountain behind us. All these pictures are of our walk this morning. Quite a lot of the walk seemed straight up. Lar could have run, I had to stop about six times; hills are not my favorite things. It was beautiful, lots of flowers, many that I had to buy for my yard but are wild here.

The rest of the day was for wiring our new weather station. Had cupboards empty so Lar could run the wires and he was everywhere...underneath to on top. Hopefully the stupid thing works. It is meant for a house that doesn't move! The weather was lovely, a light breeze and in the 70's.

Another home day

Today was another day at home. WE like days like these, part of the reason we are doing this, to have days to just do what we want. I worked on a drawing I am doing and went through my art magazines looking for pertinent articles and also reading my current novel.
I cleaned the mirrors in the trailer, all 16 of them. These trailer designers love mirrors!!!!

Lar worked on figuring out where and how to mount our new weather station and then played with the new scanner he just got on e-bay for our truck. He has been wanting one and doesn't know where to put it in the truck. I told him just get the one he wanted while it was available and then he would have to find a place for it!

It was cloudy and topped out at 75 today. Actually nice except the sun didn't make an appearance until after 6 p.m. Reminded us of the coast last year! Supposed to start warming up and clearing out next week.

This sign was on a gate near where we stayed in Lakewood, New Mexico. Sounds interesting, doesn't it???? Hmmmm....

A do nothing day & last year

We rolled out around 7:30. The low was 60, but it was cloudy again. Windy all night and windy all morning. We walked 3 miles today and we were walking into a cool wind. It stayed overcast until mid afternoon and the wind quit but it still didn’t get over 75. Today was a quiet, do nothing day. We went to a steak BBQ at the park clubhouse, really good food and lots of people and flies. We over ate, we try not to go to too many of those for that reason! Met some nice people. Hay fever has hit us both bad, the price you pay for green I guess, all this lovely grass, weeds and wildflowers are going to seed and the cottonwood trees are shedding, so Bless me, you can bet I am still sneezing!

All these pictures are of where we were this time last year.

Cape Lookout, Oregon

6-14-06 Deadwood

We woke up to sunny skies, 71 degrees and by 9 a.m. it was 83 degrees.

Deadwood was pretty good sized and had a lot of wonderful historic buildings, but you still don’t get to see a town restored to what it really was. I’m sure there weren’t gift stores selling souvenirs and casinos all over the place. I’m sure there were a lot more saloons! It was hot today, in the 90’s but we walked around there for an hour or so. Didn’t part with any greenbacks, not even any coin in the slots. Oops, I lied, we split a scoop of Java Chunk ice cream.

We were close to Lead (leed) and drove through it, historic but not geared to the tourist trade. The Homestake mine is there though they are not currently operating. You can look into the open pit mine, pretty impressive. Then we took the scenic drive from there up to Spearfish. We stopped and saw a couple of water falls. It was a beautiful drive. Lots of cool rock formations and it ran along Spearfish creek. We stopped in Spearfish for a few groceries and then headed back home to Rush-No-More campground…home-sweet-home.

Big cloud buildups again! Mostly to the east of us, fortunately. We saw a couple flashes that almost blinded us and had a couple rolling claps of thunder, but it only rained for a couple minutes and that was it. It moved off east of us. Rapid got it a lot worse. We took a walk after dinner to visit the horses and the very pregnant mare we had been keeping our eye on had a baby with her. Still kinda wobbly, but in a few days he’ll be running all over the place.

Today is Seth’s second birthday! Happy birthday, Cutie!

It is after 9 p.m. and we are being treated to another stunning light show! Lots of great lightning. Windy and cooler, makes it easier to sleep.

6-13-06 Mount Rushmore

It rained last night. We woke up to blue skies and sunshine. It was 75 at 8 a.m. Talked to my sister for a bit, she was on her way home from work. We skipped our exercise…darn…so we could get on the road to Mount Rushmore. We took highway 79 south out of Rapid City to highway 36 to highway 16A. It is the most scenic way to get to Mount Rushmore, but because 16A is very narrow, windy, had pigtail bridges and one lane tunnels that are only 12’ 4” high; NOT for RV’s. This route was beautiful and as you went through the tunnels, Mount Rushmore was seen as you went through each one. We stopped at every possible place to get pictures. We didn’t actually go into the National Monument, cause we felt we had seen what we wanted and didn’t want to pay $8 to park. Those structures you see at the base of Mount Rushmore are parking garages!

Then we walked around Keystone, a tourist town and had lunch at the Ruby Hotel and then had a truffle for dessert from the Fudge shop across the street! It is 95 now and BIG thunder clouds are building again. We are under thunder storm warnings. I just hope we get to miss the giant hail events that have happened around here, where people have had to replace the roofs of their houses because of hail damage!

We got home around 4 and I did a load of laundry. Chores are done! Rough day. A bowl of Raisen Bran for dinner, a few hours of frustration getting these pictures where I want them and this post published and then bedtime!

Don't forget that you can click on the pictures to see them full sized.

June 12, 2006 Thunder & Fog?

Not much happened over the weekend. Saturday was cool and cloudy so it was a lazy day. We worked on the computer, talked on the phone and read. Yesterday ended up being more of the same except the sun came out. We are really surprised at the humidity here. We had heard that as soon as you got east of the Rockies it was humid, but for some reason we didn't think we'd experience yet. We have had thunder storms every day and some rain. Makes for some great sunsets!

Today we woke up to the sound of thunder, which quit by the time we got up and then we looked outside and expected the Pacific ocean to be over the hill! The clouds were hugging the ground and it felt just like we were on the coast. We took our walk and that humidity really bogged us down! The nice thing about that is we have finally quit shocking ourselves everytime we touch something. The air was so dry for so long down in the southwest that some of the shocks we were getting were down right painful! I expected to see red burn marks a few times!

So after we dried out from our walk and had breakfast Lar washed the trailer and truck. They had four different states dirt on them. We had our latest rock crack in our windshield fixed while we were in Rapid City today. I think this is number 3 for us. We got this one in Colorado Springs and then on a road from Nebraska into SD they were chip sealing and unlike in CA where they make you go slow and have Highway Patrol sitting there, we were going slow and cattle trucks were passing us and we picked up quite a few chips! Rat Bastards!

Rapid City is smaller than we expected. It is smaller than Chico. Not hard to get around in and I discovered Hobby Lobby! Crafters Mecca!!!!! I had never even heard of it, but oooo-weeeee, I could spend a week in there. I have never seen so many different yarns, EVER! It is like Michaels times three and throw in Pier 1. An amazing place. Tons of decorating stuff, supplies for every craft imaginable, put a Starbucks in there and heaven. Maybe some day! So needless to say we were in there quite awhile. Then we did the Super Walmart thing and back home.

So it has just been a few days of getting the day to day stuff caught up. Getting this blogging thing figured out has been frustrating...and DSL would make the whole experience a lot faster, but hey this beats dial-up!

testing picture sizes

Thought for the day: If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. Lao Tzu


A great pic of Ian. He is 3 1/2. An athlete and a scholar!!!














This is a sunset from our door in Brighton, Colorado.

The "grammas" as Seth called us and Seth himself!


A stunning family!



Our girls and Ian.

A lot of ground in a week!

We've covered a lot of ground the last week and a half. May 29th we left Questa, New Mexico after staying there 3 weeks. We headed north into Colorado heading for the north Denver suburb of Brighton. We stayed at the fairgrounds there all by our lonesomes for two nights. We had to get our furnace fixed there. We had made the appointment from NM. The guy did a great job and was prompt! We were just a short drive to Denver airport. On June 1st we drove our home there and left it in Pikes Peak parking lot. It was only $5 a day. We flew to Portland to visit the girls and our grandsons for 5 days. We had a great time. The boys are both smart as whips and athletic. Ian is still shy and Seth is a precocious character. The girls both looked great!

June 5th we flew back to Denver. We were pooped that evening when we got back to our trailer. We unpacked, aired the place out, took our showers and went to bed. Great taking your home with you! We got up and headed out the next day and spent the next two nights in the panhandle of Nebraska. First night in Sidney and the second night in Chadron. Very windy there, humid and hot.

We are now in Sturgis, South Dakota. We got here on thursday the 8th. We chose this Passport America park because it was away from the highway. All the rest are right on the highway. It is so beautitul here and there is so much to see that we are staying a month! It is soooo green here, lots of pine trees and grass. Wildflowers too and baby horses. We are up out of the way of the bulk of the park and we back up to the neighboring farm. Our neighbors are chickens, a turkey, goats, a llama and a couple of horses. Lots of misc. cats running around too. Get to enjoy watching all the wildlife without the feed and vet bills...this is the life! The picture is of our current home for the next month.

We took a day and scoped out Sturgis and Spearfish. Both nice towns, but motorcycle mania is slowing replacing the old historic buildings in Sturgis. It is very quiet now, but you can see all the stuff that sits around waiting for that week and a half in August when half a million people converge on the area. Amazing!