The FMCA rally was great fun as usual. The chapter I am an officer in had three big events that kept me busy. I was also a Governing Board delegate for a chapter that couldn’t attend, so I spent a lot of time at activities but only got to one seminar! The seminar I went to was the meeting of the Quilts for Kids group, am I formal and unofficial group that donates quilts and crochet/knit blankets for kids in the communities the convention is held in. I donated another one of my scrappy tumbler quilts, the one I finished at Lake Havasu in June. I will try to have two done next time.
I also taught a class in sewing Microwave Bowl Cozies. It was so much fun! I only had 5 students, but the 2 hour window let three students complete two cozies, one student get 1 3/4 done, and another one got one done (she was double dipping in another class at the same time!). Since I didn’t ask them if I could post their pictures, I covered their faces here.
Bowl Cozy students and results
I am still trying to decide whether to do a class next convention or not. Hard to think of something interesting but not too hard so they can get it finished or mostly finished in class.
As the convention was winding down, Kevin and I both were looking at getting home, so we decided to by-pass the Black Hills this time and head back to Iowa on Sunday after the convention. We spent the first night at the Kennebec, South Dakota KOA. Monday night we spent at our first Elks Lodge in Sioux City, Iowa. Kevin joined the Elks while we were in Gillette. We have a bunch of friends who belong and stay at their lodges while traveling. It worked out fine, and it was certainly convenient. We left the motorhome at a local campground for the next few days until we get it cleaned out and re-organized. We will only be home for a week and a half until we have to head to Alabama for a bunch of work on the motorhome. Sigh. It will be such a pain to empty everything and then put it all back for that short of time, but we will need the items.
I guess I was sicker than I remembered at the end of the trip, because I forgot to post! I was getting together to put a new one up, and I realized I never finished the trip posts. Oops! Here you go, weeks late. And the photo quality isn’t very good. My camera finally gave up completely, so they are all from my iPhone. The zoomed in quality is particularly bad!
We left Prince George after breakfast on Tuesday, 7 September. We decided we wanted to head home the fastest way possible, so we took the TransCanada Highway to just north of Jasper. We had intended on staying at the Icefields, but with the fires we decided on the Hinton KOA instead, the same place we stayed on the outgoing trip. The campground sites are lovely, but make sure you drive very, very slowly coming in. The campground roads are awful! Huge potholes are too numerous to dodge, so just go slowly. We had some caravan friends staying at the same place, and we all sat around our propane fire pit and relaxed after the rigors of the trip.
The next day we drove down through Jasper and Banff National Parks. The town of Jasper was closed completely as were all the campgrounds, and it was obvious why. Here are a bunch of pictures of the fire and it’s residual smoke.
When we got to Banff we saw mountain goats at the same place we saw them on the outgoing trip. There actually are 5 in this picture, but the baby is tough to spot.
Banff is just outside Calgary, so the road quickly becomes a major one, but the smoke still lingered.
Being a populous area with lots of wildlife, we saw a number of these wildlife crossings.
Animal crossing were frequent.
We spent Kevin’s birthday at Cranbrook KOA. Nice enough place. Not a great place for a 70th birthday though! We were both feeling pretty miserable, so we just had eggs and bacon, using them up before the border. No nice dinner for his birthday!
On 9 September we crossed the border with hardly any wait. Quite different when it is a weekday morning than the middle of a Saturday! We spent the night at one of the prettiest campgrounds we have ever been in – Jim and Mary’s RV Park outside Missoula, MT. The place is a gardener’s paradise with flowers everywhere. We always try to stay here when we are in the area. Since we were both feeling so blah, we would have like to stay 2 nights, but they didn’t have any availability, so we headed to Big Timber KOA west of Bozeman, MT. Nice enough place, but I don’t remember any details. Remember I noted the fuzzy head?
On 10 September we came to the Buffalo, WY KOA, and we finally got to rest a bit. We reserved a fancy patio site next to the river in their newer area. We stayed two nights. Much of the time I just relaxed on the patio, soaking up the sun and mild temps. We both needed a rest. After two nights, we were beginning to feel human again! It helps that the Buffalo and Sheridan areas of the Bighorns are some of our favorite places, though we usually stay up in the mountains or at the lake between the two towns. We wanted relaxing pampering though, so we chose the KOA. I don’t usually spring for patio sites, but this one was well worth it for recharging.
Feeling almost human, we continued east to Belevedere, SD KOA, west of the Badlands. We would normally have spent a couple of days boondocking in the Badlands area or at the park campground, but we were on a mission to get home! And yes, you are seeing a theme of KOAs. We find them standardized enough and close to the highway that we particularly like them on traveling days. After Belevedere, we spent the last night on the road at the Sioux Falls, SD KOA.
We are now almost home, and we booked it out of there on Thursday, 15 September. However a minor disaster struck not far out of Sioux Falls. We used the Blue Beacon Truck Wash there, and discovered the rock guard at the back of the MH had come unattached and we were leaking fluid of some type. We called our local shop in Decorah, IA and they said bring it in though it would get looked at for a few days. I drove the MH there while Kevin drove behind in the Jeep making sure nothing disastrous happened. He did enough debug to discover it was a small oil leak from near the oil filter. We just stopped at every rest area and checked the oil on the way. It was a slow way to travel! When we got to Decorah, we unloaded only the bare necessities (cats, meds, night clothes) and headed home. The cats were thrilled to have all the space, and they spent a lot of times doing zoomies and looking out the windows. The next day we drove back to Decorah and picked up clothes and a few more necessities. The forecast was for sunny weather, so we just left the refrigerator running knowing the batteries and solar would keep it happy. It took a week to get the diagnosis and a part (oil filter loose and a turbo hose leaking, so needed a new one of those), but we finally got the rig to Cedar Falls a week later on Thursday, 23 September.
We parked the rig at a nice local campground, Big Woods County Park. It is only 7 miles from the house and has roomy FHU sites. It makes a handy place to stash the rig while we unpacked and clean up. I admit we weren’t very quick at the cleaning business. We got the important things like like haircuts, grocery runs, and laundry though. We finally got the MH winterized. Kevin also emptied out every storage bay and repacked! I bet we are hundreds of pounds lighter LOL! It is amazing how unneeded junk hides in the back of the bays.
I will summarize our views of caravans in general and the specifics of this caravan in the next post. This one is long enough!
Still in Spearfish, SD, and still at the same campsite. The resort originally said we would have to move on Friday morning, but someone else cancelled and we got to stay in this nice site. It is always nice to not have to pack everything up!
There is a nice quilt store in town, Heartfelt Quilting, where I bought the backing for the quilt I am working on. The lovely owner volunteered her shop for me to sandwich the quilt, so we went there on Friday. I got it all put together with Kevin’s help, and it is ready for quilting.
Kevin made reservations at a chick wagon dinner for Thursday evening. The name of the place is The Stables at Palmer Gulch which is actually at the KOA near Mt. Rushmore. They give you a choice of riding a horse to the site (a lovely meadow) or riding in a wagon. We chose the wagons!
There were 5 wagons each holding 20 people.These percheons were right behind us.A better view of the watonThis was our wagon after they tied up
The entertainment was enjoyable, but not very long. The food was standard chuckwagon far with steak cooked to order over a wood fire, Dutch oven potatoes, and fabulous beans. The Dutch oven fruit cobbler was a bust though! Soggy with no real crust. Still an fun evening.
The entertainment was a funny musician, a duo, and a cowboy poet
While we were getting our initial entertainment, the saddle horses that had brought some of the attendees down were released from their corral. They were quite excited to get back to their horse nuggets! They trotted and cantered away after rolling in the dust just outside the corral.
The riding horses after they were let outThey really liked rolling in the dust
As we packed up to leave, we met the riding horses and back up draft horses coming back to the meadow. This was their main pasture after their nuggets, and they seemed pretty happy about the entire thing. All of the wagon folks went back in the same wagons we came in, and the horse back riders went in their own wagon. However theirs was pulled by a John Deere tractor with a front loader attachment! It was late when we got back, and the bed felt awfully good. I still haven’t completely adjusted to the time change!
Today we took the Rimrock Scenic Byway. Another enjoyable ride! The problem was we had one tire leaking a bunch of air, so Kevin aired it up while I made an appointment at Discount Tire in Rapid City, the nearest location. We just arranged the trip so we were in Rapid City right after lunch. The worrisome thing is they didn’t find anything wrong with the tire! They did put a new valve stem in, but the old one wasn’t obviously leaking. Hope it works because I really don’t want to buy new Jeep tires! Just one picture from today, but I think it illustrates the reason for the drive’s name.
This is us at Elkhorn RV Resort. It is expensive, but the sites are lovely, as you can see. Note the wonderful steps next to the motorhome. Kevin is determined I don’t fall down the motorhome steps again! I should have taken the picture at a different angle so you could see the hills around us. Oops!
Blue skies too
You can’t stay in Spearfish and not drive the gorgeous scenic byway down Spearfish Canyon! We spent most of Wednesday in the car, but it was worth it.
Forested hills the entire wayCraggy rocks are underneath the treesVery craggy!This waterfall was right by the road
The scenery doesn’t disappoint after the byway either.
Lake Sheridan on the way to Custer State Park
You go through the old mining town of Lead, SD the way we drove. The locals pronounce is “Leed,” and it has historic sites all over the place. The Homestake Mine was the deepest and biggest gold mine in North America. It was discovered during the Black Hills gold rush of 1876, and was in production until 2002. It now serves as an underground scientific laboratory, and it was where neutrinos were discovered.
Ruins of the famous Homestake Mine mill in Lead, SD
We eventually arrived at Custer State Park. Lots of rocks, hills, and trees, and absolutely lovely.
Rocky crags similar to those of Mount Rushmore before carvingClassic Custer – trees and rocks
The most famous drive in Custer is the Neeldes Highway. It has six one lane, low narrow tunnels carved into the rock, restricting it to passenger vehicles only. You can get an idea in these two pictures.
There is a reason for the name “Needles Highway.”This is one of the bigger tunnelsViews for miles
We ate lunch at the historic State Game Lodge where Presidents Coolidge and Eisenhower spent time in the summers. They had a very nice buffet, but I had planned on one of their traditional bison burgers! The buffet was a quite acceptable alternative though. We came back through the craziness that is Keystone (just outside Mount Rushmore) and Deadwood. I try to stay away from both. I just can’t get excited about Rushmore. We have seen it, and the carvings are interesting, but I much prefer more natural sights. And Deadwood is just the definition of a tourist trap! Come to think of it, so is Keystone.
Oh, and I found a great little quilt store in Spearfish. I bought backing for my great niece’s baby quilt, and the lovely women said I could use their tables to sandwich it! Fabulous news, and I will do that on Friday.
We have to move sites tomorrow from this huge pull through site to a large back in due to their reservation mixup. I have discovered a car wash that has an oversized outside bay we are hoping to wash the motorhome in. The poor baby is absolutely filthy. So tomorrow we will move the Jeep to the new site, then take the MH for a wash. When we get back and set up, I will go sandwich my quilt.
It was just so bad in Chamberlain we decided to leave a day early. Not only was it hot, hot, hot, but an even worse wind was forecast for Tuesday. I was tired of driving a big box in heavy winds! We made reservations in Wall, SD at Sleepy Hollow RV Park. It fit the bill for a straightforward full hookup site, but no extras. However it was lovely and cool! The temperature never got above 85, a fabulous change. We actually had to turn the heat on this morning with the temps in the low 60s. Well, at least Kevin had to turn on the heat; I was doing just fine LOL!
Wall is just outside Badlands National Park, so of course we had to go for a drive. It is a lovely place, but I have never seen it so crowded! We decided we would just enjoy a drive through without stopping for much. We just wanted the basic experience, and we have been at the park probably a dozen times. It was quite relaxing. Of course I did have to get a couple of pictures of the badlands plus a flower picture.
Classic badlands photo with scary cloudsThe Yellow Mounds area is one of my favorite. No color correction – they really look like thisPrickly pear cactus flower
The scary clouds ended up a serious thunderstorm not long after we got back to the motorhome. Lightening was very visible, but we missed the worst of it. And the prickly pear was a surprise. There were hardly any flowers visible in the expansive, tall grasslands. These guys were tucked at the end of cut banks where the grass wouldn’t out compete them. The petals are like crepe paper – thin and textured.
While in Wall, one must go to Wall Drug – an absolute requirement. We bypass the tourist part and head to the restaurant for the best cake donuts I have ever had! It is a tradition with us. We also both got cups of their very weak 10 cent coffee.
Mine are the plain ones and Kevin’s are the caramel frosted ones.
We went for breakfast this morning a few minutes after 8:00, the normal time they opened. There was a sign that said they would be open today at 10:00, and this is why.
Two stream of water to tap down hot spots
This is across the street from Wall Drug, the Cactus Cafe and Lounge. A fire started around 9:00 pm, and this is what it looked like at 10:30 am. The one building is obviously a complete loss, but they saved the other buildings on the block, though the ones next door to this obviously will have significant damage. The fireman just adjusts the sprays occasionally, making sure no hot spots remain to flair up later.
We drove to Spearfish, SD, arriving at Elkhorn RV Resort just after 1:00. It took some delaying tactics to make it that late, mostly be Kevin stopping by the Cabela’s in Rapid City and just relaxing a while in their parking lot. This place is much fancier than we normally stay at, but the sites are relatively spacious and well kept. However they got our reservation confused, and we may have to move sites on Thursday. Somehow they wrote the dates down in July instead of June! We think we have things settled though, and we plan on enjoying the Black Hills, a lovely place.
We moved to Lake Sharpe, Left Tailrace campground, not far from Chamberlain, SD. It is a snake like “lake” on the Missouri River, the last of the dams built on the river. The weather, however, continues to be awful. Temps have been hitting 100 for a few days, and the lows are 80 or more. The winds have been a continuous 20 mph with gusts much higher. I am really quite impressed with the tenters that have stuck it out. A few of them had their tents pretty much flattened by the wind, and it has to be miserable to try to sleep with temps in the 90s at 10:00 pm.
The area is absolutely gorgeous though! Huge swaths of tall grasses that sway with the wind plus the river/lake and lots of old Sandhills from the river movements in the past. It was hard to get even so-so pictures due to the wind and dust in the air.
Lake SharpeLots of dust in the air from the high windsHuge swaths of grassesOld sandhills have large numbers of yuccasA single yucca in bloom
We also went to the Alta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center at St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain. It was a small but very well done museum with lots of local lore. They were even having a quilt display – large Medicine Star quilt patterns like the one on the famous statue “Dignity”.
At the entrance to the museum.One of a dozen or so quilts. I love the Baptist Fan quilting design.A classic canoe made in the 1880sFully dressed for ceremonies
There were lots and lots of wonderful things, both beaded and the more traditional porcupine quill decorated. I just wandered around and spent time at each display with awe. The displays placed the items in their cultural context too.
And no visit to Chamberlain from I-90 would be complete without a picture of the “Dignity” statue at the rest area on the east side of the river before you get to Chamberlain.
“Dignity”
We are just burned out here. We had planned to stay until Tuesday, but we have decided to head farther west and up in elevation, searching for some milder weather. We made reservations at a campground in Wall for tomorrow night then head to our spot in the Black Hills on Wednesday.
We left Cody to head to the FMCA convention. As always there was way too much to do, and we were able to get about half of the seminars we wanted. So many seminars, so many at the same time! We only bought a nice T-shirt for me, but we enjoyed just looking around the vendor area. No pictures of the campsite because it was an empty field with lots and lots of rigs around, parked quite close to each other. They had around 1,300 rigs plus a number of rigs from vendors, so it is always a bit crowded.
We left on Sunday morning, and we had an easy drive to Badlands National Park. We are staying in Cedar Pass campground inside the park. There are only a few spots that can accommodate a long, wide rig like ours, but we reserved this site months ago. They are just wide spots along the entry road, and we had to drive the wrong way on the one way road to have our steps face the picnic table instead of the road.
It is moderately spacious with great views
As we drove to Rapid City to pick up my medications at one of the only CVS pharmacies in the state, we stopped just long enough for a small sampler of photos.
Just a sampling of the area
The smoke haze makes it harder to enjoy the vistas. Can you see the hills in the distance? Normally those are quite visible. We are due for some rain tomorrow, so I intend on heading out after that to get some clearer pictures.
Lots of haze from fires in Oregon
And of course we had to stop at Wall Drug for donuts and coffee. These are hands down the best cake donuts I have ever had, and we make sure to stop every time we are nearby. They are what makes the tourist trap worthwhile.
Wall Drug has the BEST cake donuts!
Kevin went out last night to take Milky Way pictures, but I stayed in the MH to sleep. Hopefully he will get some processed and I get post a few soon. It is very windy and hot today, and so we are just going to do town stuff. He is hoping to get out again tonight for a few more pictures, but it depends on when and where the clouds come in.
I obviously am not terribly motivated to keep up the blog when we aren’t traveling, so it has (again) been weeks since I updated. I will try to catch up. Warning: there is a bunch!
I finally got caught up on my donation sewing, and I am taking a serious break. I made 20 isolation gowns of a horrid fabric that turns out to be designed for outdoor signs! It was a very heavy double knit fabric, and a bear to sew. Each gown took 2+ hours, so it was a considerable amount of work. I didn’t take any pictures because I don’t want any nightmares of them! I also finished a box of “Button Buddies” which are small absorbent pads to fit around a pediatric g-tube. Those were for The Preemie Project, and I completed 600 of them.
The top one is the sample. The rest I sewed.
I was also very lucky that my son in law dug out a garden for me, and a daughter in law helped me choose plants and planted most of them! It is a shady spot facing north, so shade lovers only. Obviously lots of different types of hostas, coral bells, azaleas, variegated redbud shrub, Sweet William, and some others I can’t remember.
Left an empty spot for some type of garden ornament
Still did some more piecing. I got a new die for my Accuquilt cutter, a 7” (finished) Drunkard’s Path. I ordered a fat quarter collection from Connecting Threads, and here is the first sample I made. I am thrilled! Everything went together perfectly. It certainly helps to have perfect cuts.
Look at those perfect seams
I started saying we were traveling, but gave no information. We took a trip to Badlands National Park for Kevin to take night sky photos of the Milky Way around a new moon. We left on a week ago on Wednesday morning, and spent the night in Fairmont, MN at the Flying Goose campground. Nice little place with lots of long term residents, but well kept and good sized sites. Thursday we stayed in Al’s Oasis campground in Chamberlain, SD. Not bad, but more open and close to the highway. We then made it to Badlands on Friday morning. The NPS concessionaire campground is Cedar Pass. It is a series of loops with bump outs along the road for sites; the vast majority would never have held a rig as big as ours. Site 76 fit us fine, though we had to wiggle around some to get in. It is an odd site where we had to drive to the site the wrong way down the road so the door didn’t open into the street. I liked the view from the campground.
Nice view at sunsetRather dramatic shapes
We saw lots of wildlife, as expected. In addition to the ones pictured, we saw bats, an owl, and we heard coyotes. There was a large nursery herd of bison I didn’t get a good picture of. There were also a number of bachelors showing off. This guy was getting a belly scratch on a post.
We saw a surprising number of mountain sheep in at least two separate nursery herds and one herd of males.
Part of the first nursery herdThis girl was grazing by the road. We passed by 5’ from her in the car without her acknowledging our existence.As good a close up as my little camera can take
Kevin found the guys, and this is from his (much better) camera.
It rained much of the time we were there, so we had to time our sightseeing carefully. The pictures show at least some of the beauty.
Vast areas of badlandsLots of color in the Yellow Mounds areaVistas as big as the skyDeeply erodedThe tablelands were quite green
The whole purpose of coming was to get some Milky Way pictures, and the rain and clouds were bad until the very last night. Kevin got some spectacular pictures, though they need some post processing to get their full glory (he shoots in RAW format). Here is a taste.
Galactic core with the landscape highlighted by a passing carlightThe Milky Way core can only be seen in its entire glory in the summer. Saturn is the bright spot center bottom.
Since we lucked out with the weather on Monday night, we left this morning happy. We are staying in the KOA in Sioux Falls, SD. Pretty place with lots of trees and a huge pull through. We paid with points because $66 was expensive! Full hook up, and we will prep the rig for its next trip to Alabama next month. Oh, and while we were gone, I cut 80 blocks of Drunkard’s Path for Kevin’s lap rug. Two thirds of them are sewn, and I am very happy with my progress. I probably could have finished them tonight, but I thought I would write instead. Taking the Accuquilt and some dies seems like a very reasonable thing on long trips.
We haven’t made it completely out of South Dakota, but we are almost out. Tonight we are staying in the Cabela’s parking lot in Mitchell. It wasn’t our first choice, but the Badlands National Park campgrounds was full. Instead of paying a lot of money for a “regular campground”, we decided to just drive a ways farther and spend the night in the Cabela’s lot. Cabela’s encourages RVers to spend the night in a corner of the lot. No services provided, but it is generally safe and quiet. Being free doesn’t hurt a bit either. After all, our unit is fully self contained, so why spend $35-40 for a spot in a private campground?
The Badlands camping alternative was just a wild hope. It was a Friday in the prime tourist season, and I didn’t have high expectations of finding a spot. We did get to drive through the park though, and it was even more beautiful the usual. The grasslands were amazingly green due to the very wet summer South Dakota has been having, and the contrasts between the multi colored rocks and the vegetation was striking. Since we were in the motorhome towing a Grand Cherokee we couldn’t really stop anywhere – too big. We have been there a number of times before though, so we just enjoyed the ride.
I have more pictures of our Black Hills sojourn though. The first is a picture of a spring/waterfall in the town of Hot Springs.
The next is the sound of the Fall River just outside of Hot Springs. I love the sound of water. You will have to click this one to hear it. I really should figure out how to embed videos.
We also had a fabulous encounter yesterday with a huge herd of mountain goats right at the entrance to Jewel Cave National Monument. We were driving by after doing some back roads from Hill City, rounded a corner, and there they were blocking the highway.
I didn’t get all of them in any one picture, but there probably thirty or more ewes and lambs. They were definitely not too worried about the cars, all of which came to a dead stop.
Also during yesterday’s running around we ate lunch at a good German restaurant in Hill City – the Alpine Inn. We both had jager schnitzel, and it was lovely. We went to this restaurant last year when we were on vacation with the kids near Spearfish, and it was just as good as we remembered. Across from the restaurant was a shop with hundreds of metal yard sculptures. I ended up with a peacock whirly gig and some roses. I will take a picture when I get them in the front bed.
We are actually going to spend tomorrow night at a campground in Waterloo so we can get the motorhome all cleaned up. It won’t be out again until late September or early October. We do have other trips planned, but they will be with the tiny tent camper or the car.
We have a lovely campsite at Angostura State Recreation Area. There are actually 6 separate campgrounds. On the west side of the reservoir is a small regular campground and a horse camp. On the east side, where we are, there are four campgrounds. We are in Cascade campground, the second from the north. Lots of trees, a very nice toilet and shower building, playground for kids, and access to a really nice bike trail make it a good choice. I took some pictures at night, but I haven’t taken any good day time pictures around they campground. I will try to do that tomorrow. Here is one with the full moon poking through the trees last night though.
We have taken some nice drives so far. We went to Rapid City for a prescription refill, and we went through part of Wind Cave National Park. It is a different view of the Black Hills showing the prairies that are intermixed with the mountains. Gorgeous!
We also went into Custer State Park to drive the Wildlife Loop toward Rapid City. It did not disappoint! Turkeys, prairie dogs, deer, pronghorn, donkeys, and, of course, bison.
The bison were actually crossing the road, and they caused a massive traffic jam. We were luckily heading north and only had 5-6 cars dead stopped in front of us. The road heading south was ‘bison jammed’ for at least a mile. Another interesting thing was that there were bulls in the middle of the nursery herd. They were definitely creating harems. The bulls aren’t often with the cows and calves – only when they are getting ready to mate. One big guy, on the right in the picture just above, had collected at least three cows, and he was giving low bellows trying to attract even more.
Today we just hung around the coach and took a quick trip into Hot Springs. There is an aptly named “Skyline Drive” we took toward the top of Battle Mountain. It was definitely a high clearance road due to the wash outs, but the view downhill was lovely.
This picture shows the old sanitarium, now a VA center, and a part of the National Cemetery. The red sandstone buildings are a feature of Hot Springs. Before our common pain medicines were known, hot springs were the primary treatment for most joint and muscle issues so there were a number of sanitariums in the area.
We also had a nice dinner cooked outside. Kevin grilled steaks on the Volcano charcoal stove, and I cooked potatoes and onions on the camp stove. Note mine just got put on the grill. I like medium rare;Kevin prefer medium. We added some garlic butter right at the end and it was delicious.
It isn’t a very big grill, but it uses only a few briquettes and works fine for the two of us. The whole thing, including an adaptor for propane, fits in a small bag for storage. Storage is important for traveling!
Tomorrow we intend on driving up to Hill City and wandering about that area some.
