HOME--AFTERNOON OF SEPTEMBER 21,2009

For those of you still following this Blog...YES, we did in fact arrive home safe and sound during the afternoon of September 21st to temps in the high 90's.

The Internet connections in SD as well as while traveling were so poor that I was not able to add everything I really wanted to share with you...so, now I am going backwards and share some of the special highlights.

The first entry will be the BLACK HILLS WILD HORSE SANCTUARY at Hot Springs, SD. For any of you that know me...you probably remember that I have been a life-long lover of HORSES!!!
This was definitely a major highlight in our entire summer to be able to visit and spend two nights at this wonderful place. It was just like stepping into the OLD WEST.


A man named Dayton O. Hyde started this Wild Horse Sanctuary in 1988 and it is now home to hundreds of unwanted mustangs on over 11,000 acres of land. Mr. Hyde and his staff of volunteers are devoted to these horses and provide them the freedom to roam canyons, and prairies in an area where the sky goes on forever! Support for the Sanctuary comes from donations, beqests, grants, tourism and the sale of foals.
Older Foals for Sale...the sale of foals has been hurt by the economy so the Sanctuary has too many...in some cases, they have been giving foals away to previous buyers who know will give them a good home.

CHECK BACK FREQUENTLY FOR MORE HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR TRIP!

ALMOST HOME!!!

Good Morning...I will try to fill in the blanks at a later time, but for those of you following us...we are ALMOST HOME! It has been two weeks on the road and lots of wonderful visits. After two days and nights at the Wild Horse Sanctuary we took off for COLORADO! We traveled south out of South Dakota to NEBRASKA and down the western end of NEBRASKA into WYOMING right near Cheyenne and then into COLORADO. Stopped at a COLORADO welcome station and found that Estes Park (our planned destination) was having a Scottish Highlands Festival that weekend and were told that everything within miles of there would be packed full. We found a State Park at Loveland, CO...about 30 miles due East of Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park and stayed three nights there. The 30 mile drive to ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK was lovely up thru a deep narrow winding canyon. We saw BIG HORN SHEEP grazing right in someone's yard along the way! We drove back and forth to the park several times viewing ELK! The ELK were just coming back down from the mountains and beginning to gather their harems!
We had never seen the BULL ELK before with big racks as we had only been there in the spring and early summer months. We saw MANY ELK and MANY BIG BULL ELK with large racks and heard them BUGLE out...it was awesome! The few days we were there were cloudy and rainy and we were not able to go to the western side of the park as the TRAIL RIDGE ROAD was fogged in and they closed it because of SNOW!!!! We had SNOW flurries on our windshield!!! Had a great time anyway. From Rocky Mountain Park we drove south thru DENVER, COLORADO SPRINGS and PUEBLO, CO and into the Northeastern part of NEW MEXICO to RATON, NEW MEXICO via I-25! At Raton, NM we picked up a local road that took us toward the panhandle of TEXAS. We stayed at CAPULIN, NM near the CAPULIN VOLCANO NATIONAL MONUMENT. We could have driven to the top of the volcano but did not! Drove down thru the panhandle of TEXAS, staying one night at Childress, TX and visiting several of Dennis' cousins that we had not seen in many years! Visited PEG & JIM HARDWICK at Chico, TX...then east to MT. VERNON, TX to visit AUNT FLORENCE CAMPBELL and daughters Rose & Kathy...then south to TYLER. TX to visit cousins STAN DOTTY BARTZ...WHAT WONDERFUL VISITS WE HAD WITH EVERYONE!!!! From Tyler, we continued south to near COLLEGE STATION at IOLA, TX to visit Linda's brother, IRA & WILLIE FAYE BETTS and family...MORE WONDERFUL VISITS AND REUNIONS! Pictures will be limited for now as the laptop that contains MOST of our photos has decided to take a vacation...so hopefully we will be able to find someone who can save the info when we get home!!!! From IOLA, TX we headed homeward east across I-10! At present we are still about 250 miles from home...so should be there early afternoon. WHAT A FABULOUS FIVE MONTHS IT HAS BEEN!!!!

LIFE AFTER LAKE PACTOLA...VACATION!!

FIRST DAY AWAY FROM LAKE PACTOLA: Our first destination was the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary…we had reservations to camp there for the next two nights as well as take the Wild Horse Tour on Wednesday morning. We arrived at the sanctuary about Noon on Tuesday, checked in, had lunch and then were off to Hot Springs, SD to explore.

This photo was taken of us at the Wild Horse Sanctuary with the wide open spaces where the horses roam in the background and the sanctuary buildings in the valley below!

First stop was the Mammoth Site. I normally do not get very excited about dinosaurs and such, but this tour was very interesting and it is an actual active dig site where they are still finding bones. Rather than take the bones to a museum, they built a museum around the dig site. We had a tour guide and the whole museum was very nicely presented. Here is a photo of me next to a Woolly Mammoth!!!




Stopped at a local grocery store and then returned to our campsite at the sanctuary. Back at the campsite we wandered around taking pictures.

CLOSE OUT AT LAKE PACTOLA!

Wow, I have fallen behind…so much has taken place since I last posted…I will try to get caught up. This is a photo of how our camper set-up looked with the store to the left of the photo. Sunflowers had grown in our little garden in the boxes in front of the store. Our Zucchini yielded three Zucchini that we ate!!! The flowers bloomed continuously, even though their growth was stunted by early hail storms!



There was a FULL "Fall Moon" just before we left...it was beautiful every night on the lake. It was really dark when Dennis took this photo but it looks daylight still. It shows our main boat dock that we watched over.



LABOR DAY WEEKEND…it was a beautiful weekend and folks came out to enjoy the lake and boat. It was one of our busiest weekends since we have been here at Lake Pactola! Labor Day was the last day of business at the North Pactola Marina Store and our job was finished and several of the boat slipholders stopped by to say Good-Bye and wish us well. A few of them gave us farewell gifts…a couple bottles of wine, $20 plus a gift certificate for Applebee’s! Tuesday morning we turned in the monies and perishable items (there were not many left after the busy weekend) and said our Good-Byes to Dave & Nancy Fisher at the South Marina Store! By 9:30 AM we were hooked up and ready to roll! GOOD-BYE LAKE PACTOLA...it has been FUN!