Heading toward home

 So originally our plan was to do the Black Elk Peak hike this morning. This is a 7 mile hike up to the highest peak in South Dakota. We decided we are tired and our legs are tired and maybe we would just prefer to start a slow trip home. 

Started by going out to breakfast at Our Place. Is was just about across the street from our house. The food was very good although they were very slow. By the time we left we had 20 minutes to pack up and check out of the house. We walked out at 9:58 - 2 minutes to spare.

Drove to Hill City and walked around just a little. Mom wanted me to get some t-shirts for her so stopped for those. Back on the road and figured we would just travel until we were tired.

We ran into some light rain around the Badlands and realized rain and no air are not a good mix. The windows fogged up and no defrost. Thankfully it never got too bad. The further we went the darker it was getting. Kurt pulled up the weather and it looked like we could run into some bad weather all the way from Murdo to Mitchell. Stopped to get gas and check out the situation. We decided to just stop for the night as we were planning to stop somewhere anyways, although did want to go a bit further.

Checked into a cute little hotel - Range Country Lodging. Thankfully we were able to get a room as I guess they have a bus coming in. Went to the room and relaxed for a while until we went to dinner. Went just 1/2 mile down the road to Buffalo Restaurant and Lounge, would like to have walked but it's still pretty dark out there and didn't want to get wet. Restaurants was okay - I had chicken fried steak and Kurt a steak. They did have a nice little salad bar and you got a scoop of ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert.

Back to the hotel to watch some Spiderman (seems there is a Spidey marathon) and early night. Think we are going to try and hit the road early tomorrow as it looks like it could get stormy again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I hate American Airlines

Image
  Chase graduates A school Friday, July 25 so of course I am headed back to Charleston. Short solo trip as he gets to come home after graduation. He said he would prefer us to take time off when he is home so that is what Kurt is doing.  Flew out to Sioux Falls on Wednesday night, left early to give myself a little buffer in case there were any flight issues. Thankfully I did!!! Knew it was a tight layover in Chicago but unfortunately that was the only option that worked so went for it. Flight out of Sioux Falls was delayed... I understand to a point, but the frustrating part is they will never come out and say delayed and give you an estimate of how long. Five minutes before our scheduled departure they were showing on time and our plane wasn't even at the gate... Anyways, get to Chicago and missed my connection. They had booked me for a flight the next morning through Charlotte. They made me gate check my bag in Sioux Falls so long night in the Chicago airport with no bag. O...
Read more

Alligators and Houses

Image
When I asked Chase what he would like to do in Charleston other than the USS Yorktown he picked Cypress Gardens. So we did Cypress Gardens this morning. The main draw of Cypress Gardens is the swamp boat tour. You can either row your own boat through the swamp or do a guided tour for $5. I had read you need to get there early as both are subject to availability, so we planned to get there right at 9am when they opened. We arrived right at 9 am with maybe 5 other cars. Oh well, better than lines of people! We decided to go with the guided tour as we figured they could point out alligators and points of interest and added bonus we wouldn't get lost in the swamps of South Carolina. Ends up it is a man-made swamp so really no way to get lost and the alligators we saw were pretty obvious. We basically ended up paying extra for some young guy to row us and a bunch of old people through the swamp. We had to laugh at ourselves. Our tour guide did point out a couple of interesting tidbits a...
Read more

Charleston Day Two

Image
Good sleep last night!  Packed up and checked out of the hotel this morning. Stopped at the gas station for a couple donuts and headed out for the day. First stop of the day was the Angel Oak. As usual Kurt set the GPS to avoid highways so interesting drive. Angel Oak is a live oak thought to be 300 to 400 year old. It is 65 feet high and circumference of the trunk is 25.5 feet. Area of shade is 17,000 sq feet. It's largest limb circumference is 11.25 feet and length of 89 feet. They had large wooden posts helping to hold up the limbs. Many of the limbs are actually hollow. It was beautiful!!!  Next stop was Charleston Tea Garden. Out the boonies but another neat stop. The have a cute little gift shop with different hot and cold teas you can sample. We started with a video factory tour on the processing of the tea leaves. They tour was just three different video screens you watched as you went along the windows looking into the factory. Unfortunately, they will not start harve...
Read more