Back to the Black Hills

Mid-May in Yuma can start to get pretty warm, so we scheduled our departure for points north on May 13.  We got Mandy's doctor's visit in Phoenix out of the way on Friday, and continued up to the high country, arriving in Santa Fe a couple of days later.  We had a good visit with my brother John, and then proceeded further north to Denver. 
We had reservations for a week there at Cherry Creek State Park, where Mandy's sister Penny (and her husband Rex) are volunteers in the Campground Office.  In addition to seeing them, we spent some time with my brother Tom, and his significant other Trish, as well as going to dinner with our good friends Oscar and Penny. 
We also managed to squeeze in a couple of bike rides on Denver's bike trail system.  Since we were at a rather centrally located area at Cherry Creek, we were able to take advantage of the trails and go on some pretty lengthy urban rides.
We left the Denver area on the 28th, and had a great drive north through unseasonable heat (95 degrees!) arriving at Hermosa, South Dakota, on the east side of Custer State Park, where we'd worked last summer.  We had a great visit with our good friends Al and Claire, who are working there again this summer, before driving an additional 70 miles on Sunday the 30th to Spearfish, where we'll be for the next two months.
The campground at Spearfish is all that we'd hoped it to be -- we're on blacktop surrounded by grass (and we lucked out and got one of the larger campsites), the power and water are great, we have cable TV and free WiFi, and we back up to Spearfish Creek, which is a wonderful trout stream (I'm looking forward to getting my license and trying it out).  In addition, our volunteer job at the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery (3 days on, 3 days off, 5 hour shifts) looks to be just what we wanted and expected -- and we've got great team members and a very capable supervisor.


 

Our place for June and July   
                                














Bike path and trout stream just outside the door . . . . life is good

















The weather has been a bit unsettled, but we did manage to get in a couple of exploratory bike rides around town over the last several days, and also rode up Spearfish Canyon this morning.  There are two bike shops in town, and we've already gotten information on organized rides here, which we look forward to joining.  Looks like our two months here will be good!!
We're studying up for our first day of work tomorrow, and are looking forward to climbing Harney Peak on Sunday with Al and Claire -- we'd meant to get that done last year, but just got too busy -- so its first on the agenda this season.
More pictures and news later . . . . . .