Bluffs

We had to go through Sturgis.  Mike has ridden motorcycles for 45 years (until he gave them up this year due to balance problems) and while we didn't want to deal with the hoopla of the rally, we still had to see Sturgis.  Mike had gone to the rally many years ago, but I have never been.  The town estimates that between 500,000 to 600,000 attended the rally this year.  With that many attendees, there were only 4 accidents and two deaths in the rally week.  Sturgis has approximately 7000 residents and I can't even fathom where they put the influx of people.  When we were there it looked like a normal sleepy town.  We did meet one family in a campground in Wyoming who lived near Sturgis and were praying for the souls of the attendees while running from the noise and commotion.    We did go to the motorcycle museum, but other than that, there really wasn't too much to see.  I expected the local Harley store to be huge, but it looked like any other Harley store.  I find it funny to think of all the "normal" old farts who put on their leathers and head for this event every year.  What a funny breed we humans are!  (I am not missing the noise of all the Harleys that traveled with us up to and shortly after the rally!)

Complete downtown Sturgis

We left, heading towards North Dakota without any plan for how far we would go.  We drove through agricultural land with crops of corn, hay and lots and lots of sunflowers.  We would pass fields that would go on as far as we could see with cheery sunflowers all facing the sun in rows.  What a sight!  We also passed many abandoned old homes.  I have learned on this journey that our country allowed for homesteading through the early 1930s, but changed the requirements a few times.  The early requirements mandated that eastern US farming techniques be used on prairie lands which failed and caused erosion and then were later modified to include ranching.  As I have looked at the more primitive homesites I have thought of the women who listened to the unending wind (which still hasn't ended!) and suffered through severe isolation.  I then started wondering about my grandparents.  I know that my maternal grandmother's family traveled by train from Missouri to Southern Idaho about 1910 so that my great grandfather could work on a ranch.  Why didn't they homestead?  I really don't know.  Was it too expensive?  What kind of house did they live in?  There were five children in the family.  Did they have a house similar to the very small houses of which I have seen so many?  What was my grandmother's childhood like?  I only know little bits about it.  I learned at her funeral (she lived to 101 years of age)  that she had been the sickly child of the family and not allowed to play as much as the other children.  What else do I not know?  Why didn't I ask more questions when I had the chance?  I so wish I had!  Which of course leads me to think about what will my grandchildren want to know.  Will they wonder what life was like without television, calculators, computers, cruise control etc.?  Should I write a book called Things I Want My Grandchildren to Know?  Who knows. What about my other grandparents and great-grandparents.  How do I learn more?   I am interested in other's thoughts on this subject!

No wrong turns here!

Sunflowers

Wild sunflowers

We occassionally see more "badland" type formations.  This one is called Chimney Rock.

                                                 Where the deer and the antelope play!

We saw a sign not too far from the North Dakota border that said campgound, 12 miles in the Custer National Forest and headed down the gravel road.  We came to a beautiful meadow on some bluffs over a valley.  No one was anywhere near there and we parked in a sunny place near the cliff.  Not a place I would want to stay with small children!  We enjoyed the sounds of mourning doves calling each other from bluff to bluff.  We watched mother nature's light show in the sunset and Mike enjoyed the sunrise. (I don't see many of those!)   I listened to a rattlesnake warning from a hundred feet below without having to worry about poisonous bites.  It was a beautiful place to camp!

The holes in these cliff rocks appear to have been carved by water at some point in time.  How did the water get to the top of a bluff?

I love these little flowers!

Grumpy talking head.