Our Adventures in South Dakota....

August 26 - September 5, 2016

Left Cheyenne, WY and got to the Black Hills the same day.  We stayed in Keystone, SD (pop. 347) Pictures of Keystone, SD 2016 and camped at Holy Smoke RV Park.
Holy Smoke RV Park.
This was really a nice little park about 5 miles from Mt. Rushmore, National Park Service Mount Rushmore.  We took some really cool rides while we were here.

More Pictures of Mt. Rushmore, SD

We rode to Sturgis, SD (pop. 6,883) & Deadwood, SD (pop. 1,270).

Sturgis, Sturgis Website, was just a dinky little town.  Maybe 1 stop light at the most.  I think the biggest business there was the Harley dealership.  We were there the week after the rally (thank God!)  The population in this little 2 horse town grows to over 1/2 million people for this one week!  I don't even like a crowded elevator!  We've been to Bike Week in Daytona Beach, several times.  This is a much, much larger city (pop. 61,000) and they get around 1/2 million people for this!  There's a lot more room to put that many people!

Deadwood, Deadwood Website, on the other hand was an old, national historic landmark.  The cemetery, Mount Moriah Cemetery, is where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, as well as other notable wild west outlaws are buried.
There's a museum, plenty of gaming halls & casino's, a gold mine and quite a few places to eat & shop. 
The HBO series, Deadwood, was based on this little town.  When talking to some of the local's, they said that HBO spent quite a bit of time there doing research on the true history as well as the original saloon where Wild Bill was shot.  The series buildings were modeled after the buildings in town.  Pretty cool.

We took a ride through Custer State Park, South Dakota Custer State Park.  Beautiful!  We came across a herd of about 200 wild bison.  We had to stop as they walked across the rode...coming very, very close to my bike.  I think I might have shit a little in my jeans.  I didn't move!  They just meandered by in no hurry at all!
Georgie took a ride the next day by himself (I didn't mind a little "alone time").  He called after being gone an hour or so and could hardly speak.  He had been almost trapped by 1000 or so bison!  He said one stopped right in front of his bike and just gave him the hairy eyeball!  He wasn't sure what to do.  It finally walked off but left him a little nervous.


 

 

Pictures of Custer State Park, SD 

We rode Needles Highway, Black Hills Needles Highway, part of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway, Highway 87.  This road was way too cool!  Only motorcycles or small cars could fit through some of the tunnels...like threading a needle.

More Needles Highway...

 

Also on our list of rides there was Iron Mountain Road (16A), http://www.allblackhills.com/scenic_drives/iron_mountain_road.php.  It was part of Custer State Park.

And the Saga of Poor Sweet Annie Continues....

If you read our blog post from Friday, July 8, 2016 OMG!  Glad We Weren't...On the Road..., you know what happened to our Annie.

We left Brent & Ashley's on Sunday, July 10th.  We were checking her wound every night when we stopped.  On Wednesday, July 13th we noticed a couple of stitches had come out.  We didn't think too much of it.  We put some Neosporin on it, a huge bandaid then wrapped gauze around it then put her T-shirt back on.
When we checked it on Thursday, July 14th a couple more stitches had come out.  Again with the Neosporin, bandaid and gauze.

We arrived at our campground on Friday, July 15th in Cortez, CO.  We were busy setting up and we were sooooo tired.  Annie's wound didn't get checked until Saturday morning.  It looked like most of the stitches had come out but it didn't seem to bother her.  We wrapped it again.  We called all the vets in the area, none were open until Monday, July 18th.  We figured we'd just keep an eye on it then take her Monday to see a vet.
On Sunday when we checked it, it was completely open.  You could see the muscle!  We found an emergency vet in Durango that was open.  We all loaded in the truck at 9:30 am and headed to Durango, about an hour east of us.
We got to the vets office around 10:30 am.  They looked at it.  Dr. Randy said they would have to do surgery...again.  There may be some infection also.  Shit!  And we thought we were taking good care of her.  Shit!  He said it would be a couple of hours before we could take her home.  Poor Annie.
We drove around a while, went to lunch (at Ska Brewery-more about this in another blog post)
We got a call around 2 pm.  Annie was out of surgery, it went well.  She was in recovery.  We could pick her up around 4 pm.  This was beginning to be a very long day!  We asked if we could come see her.  They said she was still sleeping and wouldn't even know we were there.  Ok we said.
About 20 minutes later my phone rings.  It's the vets office.  Annie woke up.  We could come get her as she would probably be happier with us.  (We figured when she woke up, she WOKE UP!  She was probably barking and wouldn't stop).
We raced to the vets office.  We could hear her in the back.  Tori was ready to head back there. 
They brought her out.  Poor thing, she looked pitiful but was full of energy!  Oh...and she gets to wear "The Cone of Shame". 

They wanted to see her on Wednesday, July 20th at 7:45 am.  We thought they said they were going to check her and take her bandage off. 
She did pretty good with the cone of shame.  She got to take it off to eat and when she went out to pee and other stuff.  She caught on pretty quick when she got it off.  She wanted to go out a lot more than normal, that's for sure.  It was the least we could do for poor Annie.  Tori didn't know what to think.  Alley cat was puzzled.  How would she be able to play with her buddy.  Believe me, they figured it out!
Anyway, we got to the vets office on Wednesday and had to leave her for about an hour.  We were excited for her to have her bandage off!

We got a call that we could pick her up about 9 am. 
They brought her out when we got there.  To our dismay, she had another bandage on.  This one was red instead of blue. 

We were kind of disappointed but Dr. Randy explained that with her being a puppy it was best if they kept it bandaged for a couple weeks.  We understood.
They wanted to see her Sunday, July 24th and then again on Thursday and again on Monday or Tuesday.
We were only going to stay in Cortez until Friday, July 29th.  We looked around Durango for campgrounds.  We found one we could get into for a week starting August 1.  We made reservations at Alpen Rose RV Park in Durango (Will tell you why we chose this campground in another blog post).  Came back to Cortez and extended our stay here until August 1.
Hopefully Annie will recover nicely and this will all be behind us.
We've said many times...this is the most expensive dog we have every owned!  The nurse said Annie needs to get a job.  Well...show dog is out of the questions now.

A little kitchen update...

Had an hour to kill so I painted this area, let it dry then put up these tiles. Only took 8 tile sections. I like it. Not sure what to do with the top edge, if anything. Need to get some spackling to fill in the seam. Will touch up then.  Love Benjamin Moore Aura Paint!  Paint & primer in one.  Covers in one coat.  Dries in 20 minutes.   Absolutely no odor.

 

The House is SOLD!!!

This is the home we lived in for 20+ years in Largo, FL.  Just 3 miles from Indian Rocks Beach!

Our kids grew up & moved out years ago.  Time to move on...  We can't wait!