A tin cup or a gilded goblet, a hut or a castle, wobbly bicycles or a Bentley -- to wherever and by whatever means, my love, our journey is splendid, our cup is full.
All sorts of miscellaneous items to catch up on . . . .
First off, we've now gotten our web access resolved -- it turned out that both our Cradlepoint router AND our Verizon USB 727 cellular modem had failed, so we had to replace both of them. Fortunately, they were both under warranty, and we've now got replacements and all is working again. I suspect that they are a bit more sensitive to heat than we'd realized, even though the router is rated for 50 degrees Celsius -- the cabinet that they're installed in does get a bit warm. I've been unable to find any operating temperature specifications for the modem, but I'll be trying to figure out some ventilation for the cabinet that they're installed in to see if that makes any difference.
But, on to other happenings . . . . we decided a couple of weeks ago to take a "three day weekend" and go over to Wyoming to visit the area where I'd grown up, but hadn't been through for 15 years. Our family had moved from Montana to Worland, Wyoming in the early 50's, and I'd attended grade school and junior high school there. In 1961 we moved 30 miles away to Basin, Wyoming, where I completed high school.
With the exception of a class reunion in 1994 (see evidence below),
we'd not been to the Big Horn Basin area in north central Wyoming since my parents moved from there in the mid-80s -- and, since we were only about 275 miles away here in the Black Hills, we thought it would be fun to take a quick run back there and see the area, and some of my classmates who still lived there.
The drive over was great, with a good portion of it through the Big Horn mountains, and down Ten Sleep canyon on US 16, and into Worland.
We made a couple of phone calls to friends in the area who I'd seen 15 years ago, and made plans to get together. During our short stay, we managed to make contact with quite a number of old friends (meaning that in the best way!) : Bill and Kathy S., Virginia B., Kathie N., and Mike H. in Worland -- and with Don and Cheri R., and Doug C. in Basin (we didn't want to publish their last names to respect their privacy). Overall, we had a great time seeing people and places which we hadn't been in touch with for a long time -- and a great thanks to all of you and your hospitality!!
We're now back working at Custer State Park, and making plans for the crush of park visitors we'll be getting during the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We'll be working some overtime to accommodate the over 60,000 riders who are expected to visit the park -- the estimates for Sturgis are for over 500,000.
We're expecting that things will slow down after mid-August (and they better since we'll be losing about 13 gate attendants by the end of August). Hopefully we'll get to take in some of the attractions that we didn't get to earlier in the season, as well as get in some bike rides and hikes that we've planned.
Our good friends Al and Claire arrived here last week to work with us in the Park for the last several months of the season. They've parked their rig next to ours at our RV park (which is handy for the both of us, given the cramped quarters at our location), and we're having a great time with them and their dog Elsa. We're sure glad that they decided to come up here from Texas to spend the end of the summer here -- more in upcoming posts about our late summer adventures in the Black Hills.
We've also taken the time for a few bike rides in the area here. We went on the Mikelson Trail from Custer to the Crazy Horse monument (uphill!!) with John and Geneva, two friends who we met here at work. Fortunately its on an abandoned railroad grade, so the maximum grade is 4% -- but its still a good ride. We hope to do more sections of this trail, which runs over 100 miles through the Black Hills.
Just for fun category: We noted the news the other day reminding us that it was the 40th anniversary of the first men walking on the moon -- we thought we'd share a picture of the two of us on that day. We'd put the camera on self timer for the first time (we'd just bought it) and took this snap of us, just after we'd taken pictures of our black and white TV screen showing the men on the moon. Boy, it was a while ago . . . .
On a final (and equally frivolous) note, we've both finally given in to our kid's requests and have joined the social networking site Facebook -- we've actually been pretty amazed at the number of people we've made contact with through FB over the last week, and will try to keep our profiles and information updated. We've also cross-linked our Facebook pages to our blog, as you can see from the new additions to the left hand margin of our postings. I guess we'll try it for a while and see how it goes -- we've certainly been pleasantly surprised by the friends we've re-established contact with, and the other linkages we've established so far.
We both hate to realize how long it has been since we last updated our travel blog, and we'd like to assure everyone that we're alive and well --- but working 40 hour weeks really puts a crimp in doing much of anything else, including blog updates.
We both love our jobs as entrance gate attendants at Custer State Park, but with the recent good weather and the start of the summer tourist season, we've been pretty tuckered out when we get home at night. Even with the longer days and warmer weather, its tough to fit much else in other than work. Here is a picture of me with one of our Custer State Park "friends" at one of our entrance gates . . . .
We have made time to see a few sights around our base in Custer --
The Mammoth Site near Hot Springs -- this is a really great paleontology excavation where significant finds have been made, mostly of wooly mammoths -- additional detail at mammothsite.com
Maybe we could move here if things really get bad . . . . .
We also visited Jewel Cave National Park, just west of Custer. We should know by now that cave pictures just don't turn out, but we tried anyway. Here are a couple of the only ones that turned out -- guess you've got to see the cave for yourselves !!
This formation kind of looked like a US map (at least we thought so) . .
Our good friends Al and Claire from Texas came and spent a week with us just recently, and Claire graciously cooked most of the dinners for us while they were here (and parked right next to us here at the Wheels West RV Park) -- what a treat!! We spent as much time with them as we could, as they re-visited all of the Black Hills sights that they had seen several years before. We're hoping to see them again later this summer.
Exploring at Sylvan Lake - Al and Claire with Elsa the wonderdog
At the lookout overlooking Custer, SD
On a hike around Stockade Lake not far from our campsite
Of course, just about the time the weather turned and we could get back on our bikes, the activity here picked up, and we're finding it harder and harder to get even minimal riding in. We haven't worked this many hours on this type of a schedule recently, and our cycling has taken a hit. Fortunately we're getting a fair amount of exercise with the job (we don't just sit in a booth and take tickets), and we're both eating well -- we just need to make the time to get out and see the country.
Not much else is new in our lives -- although one of us did reach an additional milestone: Mandy recently filed for her Social Security benefits which will begin arriving in October.
Speaking of other milestones, we'd also like to give our heartiest congratulations to our good friend, Paul Danhaus, who today finished bicycling's Race Across America (RAAM). Paul was the only 60+ male entry (winning his class) -- and finishing the 3000+ miles from Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD in 11 days 10 hours. More on Paul's great accomplishment at pauldanhaus.org
An additional note: Just as we were getting ready to post this update, our Cradlepoint router went out, so we've been without internet access for 48 hours. A quick call to technical support at 3G Store, where we bought the router and Verizon USB "aircard" diagnosed the problem -- somehow the router had failed. They arranged for a replacement one from the manufacturer which should arrive in a few days. We've really enjoyed the on-line access that this system has given us, and the service we've received from the 3G Store -- we'd highly recommend them to anyone who is looking for a reliable mobile broadband system.
