Back at the Ranch – Days 11 and 12

8/11/2022
HOT day!  102 for a high. Thursday we spent the day at the ranch, packing up what we could to get an early start Friday. We drove into town for coffee, as I forgot to grab a can the night before. As we were leaving town, we drove past the Buffalo station, which we’ve done a thousand times, but this time it clicked.

The Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, which we visited in Hill City on 8/4, has a Buffalo Station. Which makes sense, based on their fossil discoveries not far from here. Whoa. I swear, I have scratched the surface on so many new topics I want to explore, it is unreal. This will keep me busy until we return next year!

Back at the ranch, I got several shots of a spotted ground squirrel before he burrowed back into his hole.

The day had REALLY warmed up so I spent most of the day catching up on blog posts while our A/C chugged along. I get one bar of data at the ranch which has been enough for texting and phone calls, but uploading data of course takes longer. It kept timing out until I found a sweet spot for my phone leaning against the front window. I can’t wait to subscribe to cable/internet out here.

We didn’t do much dirt bike riding, as we had quite a full itinerary these past two weeks and staying on our land tacked extra travel time to everything we did. We did however, take a ride out to the highway and back and caught the sunset.

It was nice to just speed along on a smooth dirt road instead of trying to power through the tall grass and hitting a hole or rock we couldn’t see. My bum hip appreciated this route, and I’m not sure how much riding I’d have been able to do anyway. Getting on and off Bill’s bike was pretty painful at times. Of course while we were stopped I found more rocks to take home and put through the tumbler.

Upon our return, the August supermoon rose in the east and some clouds started to form in the southwest. Before we knew it, parts of this huge cloud mass started to light up. I got my camera and tripod ready for the show.

The warm breeze picked up and it reminded me of windy summer nights on the ocean. (Blow is a new term we learned this week, as it relates to being windy. This morning we had overhead a rancher in town ask, “Is it supposed to blow all day?”

South Dakota always says goodbye with a good storm and it didn’t disappoint this time. The cloud formation reminded us of the spacecraft in the movie Independence Day.

The rain came shortly after so we packed it up and headed inside, planning for an early start tomorrow.

8/12/22
Friday as the day. Even though we got as much ready as we could the day before, it was still noon mountain time before we said goodbye to our beloved trailer and land. Packing, cleaning, winterizing, hooking up the bike trailer.  We made a closing up checklist and actually followed it.

This has been the trip of wildlife sightings because we also had an antelope come to say goodbye to us this morning as we were sipping coffee (complete with a call – he/she yelled at us for a good minute or two).

While we were packing up, a frog hopped up onto our concrete pad. I zoomed in to get a picture and right before I hit the shutter, he snatched up a fly that was buzzing around.

So. Onward to our first day of driving back. I had cancelled our planned hotel reservations due to a whole other lodging nightmare and booked the Sioux City Wingate hotel where I was told by the clerk we could park the trailer on the grass when I inquired about truck/RV parking. She wasn’t kidding.

Only one way into and out of the parking lot as well, so to get out you’d have to back all the way out. Crimony. Up over the curb we go, parked with a number of other trucks/trailers. It was dark and a kind gentleman who had just gone through the same thing guided us in. “Welcome to Iowa!”, he said.  LOL “We’ve been doing this all day.”

Lord. Oh well, the room was spotless and the pillows were beyond fluffy. The first day of our commute back to Michigan was behind us and I don’t expect the second day to be anything to write home about.

Thank you for coming along with us this year!