Friday

Good morning road crew! We still have another hour or so before we can start driving towards Kansas City since we didn’t quit until after we got loaded about 11pm last night. Long first day back indeed! I have been trying to play catchup with everything… So no new photos just yet. My time in the Black Hills of South Dakota was fantastic!  The first day it got up to 103 degrees and I was wondering how I was going to handle hiking in that temperature!  The rest of the trip was all in the 70’s. Absolutely perfect weather! I didn’t get but half of what I planned to do accomplished.  Just a quick rundown for ya, I managed to explore the town of Deadwood,  hike around the Badlands,  witness a shootout in the streets, bum around the Black Hills National Forest, run the gravel roads around the defunct mining town of Mystic, take photos of The Needles spires until my shutter release finger got sore, watched the lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore,  found a beautiful small lake that i was literally seconds away from swimming in – until I noticed everybody suddenly getting out of the water as fast as they could… There is so much to tell you folks and so many videos and photos I took using 2 camera phones and my big camera. Its going to take me a few days to sort things through! Bummer though, my $1600 crystal zoom lens focusing mechanism has failed after 10+ years of usage.  Oh, did I mention the numerous wildlife I saw and captured on camera? And…..getting surrounded by a herd of Buffalo?  Literally.  Lol I gotta get going here and get ready to drive…you know,  that thing called work. I found these 3 pics and figured I could tease ya with them and make ya come back for more exciting details over the next few days! Did you see our snowman cam put on his future-vision goggles? (thanks bela, good job) What happens when you try to take a big RV through a small tunnel on the Needles two lane curvy roads? BigRigSteve taking a break from hiking the small lake everyone just evacuated! And…..coming up later, numerous times I was captured on various webcams exploring Deadwood!