Stormy Saturday

After a week full of meetings, it was kind of nice to stay home today.  Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well last night, as it was too hot in the house.  If finally cooled off around 2 or so, so I could get some sleep.  I spent a lot of time cleaning up, putting stuff away, getting ready for our visitors this weekend.

While I was cleaning, I watched Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers on Bluray.  It has been raining all afternoon and evening, so it just seemed appropriate to stay in and do housework.

Day Five

The trip home.  We got up at a decent time, packed the car and checked out.  We first went to Wall Drug, but we didn't stop there for long as we had been there before, and nothing much had changed.  Then we took a detour through the badlands.  Very impressive scenery - even caught some mountain goats foraging.  We spent probably an hour and a half driving through and taking pictures and video and just checking it out.  We didn't stay out of the car very long, because it was getting pretty warm - close to 90.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful.  Tomorrow it's back to work, and see what excitement happened while I was gone.

Day Four

We slept in today - both of us were really tired.  We went into Rapid City for breakfast at I-Hop at noon.  (It's a vacation, we're allowed) :)

After that we decided to take a drive and we went to the geographic center of the US - well, the marker.  The actual center is out in the middle of somebody's farm or ranch.

We came back to town, watched a couple of gunfight reenactments, had dinner, and came back to pack and get ready for the trip home.

One more day!

Day Three

Today we drove over to the Crazy Horse Monument.  We got there and were going to take the bus to the base, to get a close up view, but the busses were grounded due to incoming bad weather.  However, we at least got to see the visitor video, and we got to see the monument itself.

During the rain/hail storm, we had lunch at the restaurant at the visitor center.  After most of the storm had passed, we came back to Deadwood.  We saw quite a bit of fog, and we felt glad we didn't have a repeat of our last visit here.

When we got back, I took a nap for a while, and she went and gambled downstairs.  When she got done losing money, we went for a walk, did a little more gambling (I just read my book), then we went to the Oyster Bay restaurant (although it was more bar than anything), and then had a little ice cream at a shop down the street.

We came back to the room and just relaxed.  I watched Iron Chef America and Cutthroat Kitchen, and played on the computer while she read a little bit and then went to bed.

These are the best kinds of vacations - no plans :)

Day Two

After breakfast today, we took a bus tour around Deadwood and up to the cemetery. The tour guide was pretty funny, and really got into his bad jokes.  The nice thing about the bus ride is that it took us into the cemetery.  If we didn't do that, we would have had to walk.

After we got back, we headed to Devil's Tower.  It was a pretty uneventful ride out there, only about an hour and a half.  We took several pictures and some video, but decided not to do the mile and half walk around it.  We had lunch at a little store just outside the park entrance.

On the way back, we took the scenic cutoff, and saw some falls and some nice scenery.  Then we headed to the Gem Steakhouse and had a nice dinner. We gambled a little more after dinner, and again, I won more than I started with.  She didn't though.

We also stopped by the Celebrity Hotel, which has a lot of movie props and stuff - including Marty's radiation suit from Back to the Future!

Day One

We had breakfast at the hotel (it's free as part of the cost of the room), then we took a short walk up the street, and bought a couple of hats, since I couldn't find my cap before we left.  Then we drove to Mount Rushmore - which is quite a ways up winding mountain roads from Deadwood.  We spent a while there, taking pictures, and we had lunch.  Afterwards we drove to Bear Country, and drove through an enclave of different animals, including elk, deer, mountain goats, and lots of bears.  The drive through took a little bit of time, because the speed limit was 10 mph, and we were in a long train of cars stopping for photos every time there was an animal :)

We drove back to Rapid City, and stopped to pick up a few more pieces of clothing (like another pair of jeans for me). We came back to Deadwood, walked across the street to a steakhouse and had dinner.  We gambled a little after dinner (the whole town is full of casinos), and I actually came away with more money than I started for a change. 

Then we made it back to the room and called it a night.

Vacation

So ready for it.  When I got home, I changed my eBay password, but I had to call them to do it because the system was a little overloaded.

I paid up on a few bills so I don't have to stress about that while we're gone. I got gas at lunch time. We did one final load of laundry, and I packed my suitcase with everything I could.  Charged up the camcorder.  We'll probably use our phones for photos instead of the camera - one less piece to lug around.

I know everything will be waiting for me, probably piled up, when I get back, but for the next 6 days, I'm not going to worry about it.