2025 South Dakota Ride with Friends - Day 5

2025 August 15 - 22 South Dakota

For breakfast this morning, Ron made us his world famous french toast.  He makes it all the time for his 30+ grandkids and I think he forgot that he was only cooking for 8, because he made a massive stack of  and used 2 full loafs of bread.  Then he made about 2 dozen scrambled eggs to boot.  No one went hungry this morning.

This was going to be our off day and we only planned to go walk the shops of Deadwood.  But we opted to ride Spearfish Canyon (for the 4th time) then ride the highway back to Deadwood.  It was still a beautiful ride.  The ride started at 75 degrees as we left the house, then 72 when we got to Spearfish Canyon.  But the temperature rose steadily the whole way up to Spearfish.  By the end it was 85 degrees when we stopped at a convenience store for water.

After cooling down a bit, we took the highway back to Deadwood.  We parked in the garage for $10 for 24 hours so we could come back tonight during the Deadwood Kool Nites classic car show.

We did allot of trinket and gift shopping up and down the street.  Nan bought an insulated water bottle.  If anyone ever wants to buy a unique cowboy hat, Deadwood is the place.  Every shop had leather hats and one shop even seemed to custom make hats.  If I hadn't already spent all that time a few months ago researching what I wanted and picking out a good hat, this would have been a good opportunity to find one.

After a couple hours of shopping, we met up at the Stockyard for lunch.  We've eaten here several times over the years and it's always been good food.  Everyone split a miles, like chicken sandwich or french dip, but Nan and I each got a crispy chicken salad.  Nan's had ranch and mine had balsamic dressing.  They were really good and it felt good to eat something more healthy than meat and potatos.

Stockyard Restaurant

Can someone explain to me why young people think vertical photos look good for every single picture they take?  I really didn't need half of my photo to be the ceiling of the restaurant.  Do they not look at the phone as they take the picture?  Ok, that's enough grumpy old man voice.

After lunch we walked next door and got Ice Cream.  John took a picture of us......  Hmm, I guess it's not just the younger generation that uses vertical for every picture.  But at least his is well framed.

Nan started getting tired when we finished the ice cream, so we texted the others that we were heading back to the bikes then to the house.  We mounted up and took the back road to Lead.  Nan lay down to rest and I went back to writing the Blog.

Eventually everyone came back.  We chatted for a while about maybe doing a ride.  I thought it would be too long because I miss-understood the route so we didn't go.  Instead I lay down for 45 minutes and got a nice rest.  As a result, I'll probably be awake till 11:30 and wake up at 4:00 tomorrow morning.  Maybe not, it was allot of walking.

We ate spaghetti for dinner.  It's been nice to save some money by cooking dinners rather than going out every night.  We've always made breakfasts on these trip, but this is the first time we've tried to make both breakfast and dinner.  But it can be a challenge to find meals that everyone agrees on.  We had a couple of exceptions to our meals this week but it all worked out.

After dinner we planned on going to the Lead Live a local festival in the town we're staying.  Angela wasn't feeling well, so they stayed but the rest of us hopped on the bikes and headed down.  We say a big tent with about 20 people in it but it didn't look particularly festive so after a short discussion we decided just to go to the car show in Deadwood.

There were allot of people but it wasn't super crowded.  We easily found parking spots in the garage and didn't even have to double up the parking spaces.  This is the first night of the show so it must have had fewer cars.  Only the Northern half of main street had cars.  When I was here years ago there were cars everywhere, including all of the ground level parking lots.

We started browsing cars but soon all the others, including Nan had wandered away from me.  I took my own sweet time and meandered slowly up the street.

Looking up Main Street

1967 Ford Bronco Half Cab

While I was meandering, I saw a group of guys dressed ol' timey and figured some so of re-enactment was going to happen.  Sure enough, one guy asked us to clear the center of the street and they re-enacted the capture of Jack something who shot Wild Bill Hickock.

We spent a couple hours at the car show, then headed back to the house.  No one was really interested in playing cards so I worked on the blog and everyone else got ready for bed.  I've actually managed to finish the blog on the day of, so I might sit and practice my ukulele a bit then go to bed.  I'd like to sit in the Hot Tub, but I can't sleep when it's hot so I always wind up spending an hour cooling off and I'm already going to struggle getting to sleep after this afternoon's nap.  A little quiet time will be nice.

2025 South Dakota Ride with Friends - Day 4

 

2025 August 15 - 22 South Dakota

I woke up at 5:00 but just lay in bed and browsed facebook rather than getting up.  Most mornings my nose starts running and I start coughing shortly after I wake up and this morning was no exception.  Maybe it's because I use a cpap machine to help with sleep apnea.  When I start coughing I usually get up so I don't wake up Nannette.

I got up and decided to sit in the hot tub while it was still quiet.  I only opened half of the cover and tuned the jets on high.  It was heaven to sit there getting my muscles massaged by the hot water and listening to some light rock.  I tried to keep the volume down so it didn't wake anyone up.  No one threw a shoe at me so I guess it was ok.

I got out after 20 minutes, showered, dressed and went right back to writing this blog.

Breakfast was made by Brenda.  It was avocado toast and eggs.  I got 2 over easy eggs on mine and it was heavenly.  We had a long discussion over breakfast about the nastiness of runny yolk.  Only 2 of us like over easy eggs.  Everyone else likes dead eggs with rigormortis setting in.

We started talking about soft boiled eggs and why they are so beloved around the world, then I reminded everyone about Gulliver's Travels.  The Lilliputians were at war with the Blefuscu over which end of a soft boiled egg should be opened.  The pointy end or the rounded end.  But the unstated point of the story is that EVERYONE LIKES SOFT BOILED EGGS AND RUNNY YOLKS!!

Anyway, we had a good laugh arguing about eggs for quite a while.

Nan was feeling good today and wanted to ride, so we geared up with everyone else.  Today was a simple riding day.  We headed south then turned up Spearfish canyon for our 3rd run.  It's been everyone's favorite route.  We didn't stop anywhere but just meandered up the canyon in the cool air and clear skies.

Once we reached Spearfish, we hopped on the freeway toward Sturgis.    I tend to drive slower than everyone else so I wound up well behind.  Sturgis has 2 exits and I wasn't sure which one the others had taken.  But I knew we wanted pictures by the Sturgis sign and that's by the 2nd exit so I stayed on the freeway.  Sure enough, as we passed the stop sign on the exit, there sat the other guys.  I honked and Nan waved but no one saw us.  I wasn't too worried since everyone has cell phones and the town's not that big.

By the time I took the other exit, John had called to ask where we were.  I told him we were by the sign and he said "Stay there, we'll be there in a few minutes".  So Nan and I took some pictures with the 360 camera.  Then another couple on a bike came by and were just planning to stand by the sign.  I showed the how to ride up the sidewalk to sit near the sign and took pictures for them.

John and the rest showed up shortly after and began maneuvering up onto the pedestal for pictures.  We talked about trying to get all 4 spyders onto the pedestal but decided against it.  We just posed with all the couples around the sign and called it good.

Posing by the Sturgis Sign

Kissing by the Sturgis Sign

Next we rode down to the main road and parked the bikes.  It was getting hot by now and doing some shopping in air conditioned stores seemed like a good idea.  Everyone had their 2025 shirts, hats, and other souvenirs marked down so almost everyone bought something.  Nan was wearing my ancient Harley baseball hat which I bought in 2008.  She decided she wanted her own nice hat to wear while we're out with the bike.

Nan found a leather outback style hat that she liked.  We asked the lady how much and she thought for a bit and said $40 which is a smoking deal for a real leather hat.  At least I hope it's real leather.  But we bought it and she's happy.  Nan has always looked good in hats.

Nan's new Hat and Sun Glasses

Greg and Brenda bought quite a few t-shirts and other things to bring home to kids and grand kid at the first store where Nan got her hat.  We spent about 30 minutes in that first tent then moved on up the street.  We kept shopping for another half hour until we reached the store with the official rally photos.  We stood as a group in front of the giant photo and tried to make it look like we were part of the crowd.

Part of the Sturgis Crowd

We continued shopping until noon then met back up at the bikes.  We had shopped for well over an hour but only covered about 5 stores.  Many of the stores were already closed for the season and all of the vendor stalls were torn down and gone.  It was getting lunch time and we decided to go to the Iron Horse Saloon.  

I led the way to Iron Horse Saloon, but when I pulled into the parking lot, it looked closed.  No cars anywhere to be seen and no one visible through the windows.  We left and headed back down the street until we saw John.  After some discussion we chose The Knuckle Saloon.  It was nearly empty so we got a nice table in the middle.

The menu was very sparse but everyone chose something off of it.  Nan and I got un-battered steak tips and tater tots but we got fries instead.  The Steak Tips were delicious.  We were the only ones happy with our choice.  Greg ordered some deep fried pickles but missed the fact that they were "hot" pickles and wound up with a bad stomach ache.  John and Angela got the chicken sandwich special but found it to small not tasteless.  Ron and Karen got a rock hard bun on their chicken sandwich.  In all, a really bad meal.

John went outside to get something from his bike and came back warning of black clouds gathering.  The weather app showed a bad thunder cell coming over us but it didn't seem very large so we weren't worried (foreshadowing).

One Storm in hundreds of miles and its over us

Greg's stomach was so bad that they decided to head for the house rather than do any more riding.  We said our goodbyes and headed off.  Our plan was to ride Vanocker Canyon Road down to Johnson Corner then take highway 385 back.  We left Sturgis headed South East toward blue skies but after 5 minutes we began to get light springs.  Then it turned into a light rain which continued falling.  I kept expecting to ride out of it but we never did.

Rain on Vanocker Canyon

We stopped to put on rain gear, but it wasn't raining hard and the sky ahead looked clear, so we only put on jackets.  Except for Nan.  She remembered our last trip here and wanted her full gear.  She can learn from experience, not so much the rest of us.

We started riding down the road again, but instead of getting lighter, the rain just got heavier.  Soon there was water running down the sides of the road and my pants were thoroughly soaked.  I kept talking about how wet I was getting and Nan would just reply "I'm fine" cause she had full gear on.

Finally Karen told Ron to STOP and let her put more gear on.  So Ron stopped and I followed suit.  It only took a few seconds to put my rain pants on and about that time John came back to see where we were.  John and Angela decided not to put on more gear because they were already soaked.  We also decided to turn around and head back to the house.

The rain continued just as hard once we turned around and continued until we drove out of the canyon when it started to slacken.  Finally as we were 5 miles down the road to Deadwood the rain stopped and the sun came out.  I looked in my weather app and the big red blob of rain was sitting just West of Rapid City, right where we would have been if we had continued riding.  Sometimes (most of the time?) us guys need our wives to say "Stop and turn around" and we should listen to them.  I'm sure I've learned my lesson and will never continue pushing a bad decision ever again despite the advice of my wife.

On our way back we drove slowly up Deadwood's main street just to see what was going on.  It wasn't packed with people but it looked pretty active.  I video taped the drive but I'd forgotten to wipe the lens from all the rain so it's blurry and unusable.

Back at the house everyone started showering and drying off, but all my clothes were dirty, so I drip dried.  I wasn't all that wet anyway and within an hour I just had a few damp spots on my jeans and shirt.

I did yet more blog writing, then drove down to the store.  My shopping list was, a case of water, diet dr pepper, peanut m&ms, trash bags, gatorade, fat boy ice cream bars, and ice.  They didn't have the right gatorade, no fat boys and the ice cream sandwiches looked freezer burned, and I forgot the ice.  It wasn't a great shopping trip, so Greg had to make another run later.

Greg cooked burgers for dinner and I cut up a watermelon.  Both were awesome.

Greg Cooking Burgers

We played some cards for a while, then John suggested we go for an evening ride.  That sounded like fun so I started getting ready, then John remembered that his shoes were still soaking wet and decided not to go.  Everyone else dropped out too, but I still wanted to ride and went alone.

I've been experimenting with my 360 camera and my new bluetooth headset.  I can record the audio from my headset while I make a video then pair the two.  With a 360 video, you can make a normal video while pointing the camera in any direction to create a virtual video.  You don't have to pre-point the camera like you do with your phone.  So here's the video I made.

Riding Deadwood's Main Street at Dusk

2025 South Dakota Ride with Friends - Day 3

 

2025 August 15 - 22 South Dakota

Day 3 was Sunday morning.  I got up at 5:30 but John was already awake and sitting out in the living room browsing on his phone.  I got up and started working on this blog.  If I haven't mentioned it, writing blogs is hard.  Trying to tell a joke that won't offend or put enough of my personality into a blog so my decedents can know a little bit of who I am and what I'm like.  I also love re-reading my old blogs and reminiscing about the good times and sometimes reminding others of those good times.

Sunrise from the Rental

After an hour or so I managed to finish day 1 of the blog.  Only a day and a half behind.  I'll need to catch up or it becomes very hard and I forget too many details.

Angela got up around 7:30 and started making her wonderful french toast.  Somehow by the time the groceries got into the house, all of the bread I'd bought for Angela was squashed, so Angela stole Karen's bread to cook instead.

Everyone got fed and ready to leave by 9:00 so we could make the 45 minute drive out to Belle Fourche for church.  Nan didn't want to ride today so we were in the Highlander.  Angela and Karen rode with us to church.

All the Spyders in the rental Garage

It was a nice old building, but I started to get one of my allergy attacks.  Some of those old buildings used burlap on the walls for sound deadening and sometimes I react very bad.  My nose started running, my eyes got itchy and I couldn't stop coughing, but after 10 minutes it stopped so I was able to stay.  Sometimes it's so bad I have to leave.

Church was nice and the people were very friendly.  We stayed through Sacrament, then all the ladies headed to the bathrooms to change out of church clothes and into riding clothes.

From church we were heading to Devils Tower in Wyoming, about 50 minutes away.  If you don't know what Devils Tower is, it was the mountain in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".  A really striking tall pillar of rock with unique stripes down the sides.  It's the left over core of a volcano that all the debris has washed away from.

The indians called it Bear Lodge thinking that some giant bear had long ago raked it with it's claws to make the stripes.

Anyway, the drive towards Devil's Tower was very nice.  Low hills and scattered trees with beautiful view all around.  I would really have enjoyed the ride except for the heat.  We stopped for a drink at a gas station about 9 miles short of the tower.  It was getting up into the 90s and several ladies were getting uncomfortable.  The lady in the gas station told us that the best food was the Diamond Bar just outside the Tower.

It was pretty good food if very slow service.  No one complained about the food, and at the end, Nan got a blue berry tart with ice cream that everyone sampled and loved.  Ron got a bit bowl of ice cream as well.

We'd been to Devil's Tower on previous trips.  In fact, on one trip, someone make the comment that he'd actually driven to the top of the tower and how neat it was.  Several people questioned him, but he was sure he'd been to the top.  As it turns out, he hadn't.  It was just a winding road around the back side of the tower to a shaded parking lot.  So this time, John took the photo uf us all and our bikes, pasted onto the top of Devil's Tower and sent it to the guys telling him how we'd finally made it to the top.  Some jokes will just never go away.

Rode the bikes to the top of Devil's Tower

The other 3 couples all decided that they didn't really need to see the tower, but Nan really wanted to.  So she and I said goodbye and headed into the national monument.   It was just like I remembered, nice road through trees to the back side.  Then a short hike up toward the tower reading all the information signs. By the time we'd seen enough and headed back to the car it was down right hot.  The car was burning hot too and took a long time to cool back down.

Devil's Tower

Nan at Devil's Tower

On the way back I dropped Nan off to get here nails done and I ran to Walmart to get a few groceries.

Dinner was supposed to be spaghetti but everyone was tired so it turned into "Call Pizza" night. 4 large pizzas was way too much for this group and we wound up putting 2 whole pizzas in the fridge.

Nan headed to bed early, I worked on the blog, and everyone else played Looser for a couple hours.  But by 8:30 everyone had headed to bed.  I stayed up blogging until 10:30 then went to bed.

2025 South Dakota Ride with Friends - Day 2

 

2025 August 15 - 22 South Dakota

I woke up at 5:30 to shower and start preparing breakfast.  This trip we assigned each couple one day to cook breakfast and dinner and today was our day.  I prepped bacon, mushrooms, ham, and green onions by cutting and cooking them.  I brought 10 dozen eggs for the entire week.  I also brought my own sauté pan so I didn't have to cook in whatever leftover scummy pan was in the rental.

I also started writing this blog since I had no chance to do it yesterday.  My blogging has been very spotty lately but I really want to save more memories so I'll try to keep this up.

People started waking up about 8:00 and I began making omelets.  There are several different ways to make omelets and I tend to do the style with just eggs, rapidly stirred until curds form, then smooth it out. Let the eggs solidify, then flip the eggs and sprinkle cheese over the whole thing.  Add whatever fillings they want, then fold it in half.  Let the cheese melt on one side then flip to melt the other side and serve it.

If you add filling directly into the eggs you have to leave the eggs very soft (nearly raw) or the omelet will crack and won't look appealing.

That enough of my omelet making expertise.  Everyone seemed happy with the results.

By 10:00 we began migrating down to the bikes.  It often takes 30 minutes to load cups with ice and water, find gloves, get snacks and all the other important things you need on a ride.  But being in a house and doing day rides is MUCH better than those rides where you are in a different hotel every night and have to unpack and repack every day.

We started by riding down the hill from the house to a gas station where more prep was done.  I started out wearing a jacked but sitting there waiting for others to be ready I began seating, so I tucked the jacket in one of my saddlebags.

We headed South down the highway for 8 miles and turned back North into Spearfish Canyon.  The temp was in the low 70s and felt really good.

Riding down Spearfish Canyon

Spearfish canyon is a relaxing ride.  It's all low speeds, like 35 and 45.  We cruised along for 15 minutes just enjoying the scenery until we got to the first waterfall called Spearfish Falls.  It was just far enough into the ride that many of us old geezers needed to use the bathroom, but these were really bad and smelled it.  You just had to take a deep breath and dash in.  The sad part was, once we left, there were about 10 clean, new, port-a-potties just down the road.  Probably put there for the Sturgis rally.

Once the necessities were done, we walked over to the trail map.  It said the trail was 1.8 miles round trip and neither Nan or myself wanted to do that.  Exactly the same as the last time we visited this place.  So instead we walked over to the overlook and waited for the 2 adventurous couples to get down to the falls and take pictures of each other.

Nan, Clay, John, and Angela 

Brenda, Greg, Karen, and Ron

Once we got back together we all ate some of Brenda's custom made trail mix and got back on the bikes.  We saw the big bank of port-a-potties, then scattered ones every mile or two.  There was a creek running beside the road and fairly often we saw a car or motorcycle parked with no one around.  I assume most were off fishing the creek nearby.  We did see a few, and especially in any ponds or wide spots.  This would probably be a fun place to fish.

Our next stop was at "Bridal Veil Falls".  I think by law, every state MUST have a bridal veil falls somewhere in its borders.

There was a nice view point and we lined up with everyone else to get our picture.  But a couple ladies were just standing there watching their kids cross the creek and hike up to the falls.  We waited a while and eventually someone got up the gumption to ask the to scoot over.  We got a nasty glare from one lady but they did move over and I tried to take our picture as quick as we could.  I narrowed the picture a bit because they wouldn't actually get out of the way, they just scooched over a bit.  Yes, that's a waterfall behind us and yes, it WAS worth a picture.

Bridal Veil Falls

Once the photo drama was over we mounted up again and continued our ride.  Just a few miles down the road I started a video and almost immediately came around a corner to see a bunch of mountain goats beside the road.  I rode pretty slowly past but I probably should have just stopped because one of the babies was being very playful and jumping on the mom.  The wives assures me it was adorable.

Mountain Goats in Spearfish Canyon

After the goats we meandered the rest of the way out of canyon, then stopped at a gas station for refreshment.  It was close to lunch time but no one was hungry yet.  We eventually decided to run to walmart to pick up a few things we needed.  There is a long standing joke between John and Nannette about going to Walmart on vacation.  17 years ago on our first ride together, Nan needed some things so we went to Walmart and John wasn't happy, so we've teased him ever since and this was no exception.

John's facebook post about being drug to Walmart

2008 Picture of John in a Walmart on the PCH ride

Once we decided to go to Walmart I look up directions and we started to head out.  But for some reason, Ron decided to take off first and led the way out of the parking lot.  But he turned right and headed us into downtown Spearfish.  I didn't know if he knew something I didn't so I let him lead on.  Then about 2 miles later Ron finally pulled over and put his hands in the air like "I don't know where I'm going".  So I pulled around him and leds us in a loop back to Walmart.  Sometimes it just happens that you get excited and head down the road before knowing where you're going.

We got to the Walmart, but once you get 8 people in a store, everyone starts remembering stuff they need.  Nan and I originally went in for 2 things but came out with about 10.  But we were all on Spyders and you have to consider what you have room for. We were spread out all over the store and it took almost 30 minutes to get us back out of the store.  Once we got out, someone remembered a restaurant we saw on Ron's  wild ride, so we headed back to downtown.  It was a great lunch.

 
Lunch at Red Water Kitchen

After lunch we decided just to ride right back down Spearfish Canyon back to the rental.  It was just as beautiful on the way back as it was coming, but this time there were no mountain goats.

A week ago we had an "Empty Nesters" dinner with other older couples.  I made chicken fajitas and just made allot more than we need.  I vacuum sealed it, froze it, and brought it with us on this trip.  So tonight I made chicken fajitas for dinner.  I also made guacamole and by the end of the meal, there wasn't much left over chicken or guac, so it must have been pretty good.

After dinner everyone else started playing a card game called "Looser", but Nan and I went out to the Hot tub and soaked for 30 minutes.  The temperature was turned way up to 105 degrees and it took a while to get in.  It was a really nice hot tub with powerful jets.  We took turns moving around the different jet seats with the bubbles turned on and massaging our muscles.  

Everyone started yawning and went to sleep by about 8:30.  I stayed up and kept writing this blog until about 10:30.  I still haven't even finished the first day.

2025 South Dakota ride with friends - Day 1

2025 August 15 - 22 South Dakota

Every year we try to go on a vacation with some good friends from Arizona.  Most of the time it is to go ride motorcycles in beautiful locations with lots of twists and turns.  Last year was to Tennessee and North Caroline.  This year it is to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Nannette and I have already had a super busy summer.  We started by visiting our Daughter Kadi, her husband Dave, and their 3 boys Emmitt, Calvin, and Warner in Hawaii.  David is in the Navy and was deployed to Hawaii in March, just a month before Kadi gave birth to Warner.  Ask them about that story sometime.

Anyway, back to the here and now (or the there and then since most of you are reading this in my future).

We've been planning this trip for about 6 months.  We changed it from a long rambling trip through Utah and Idaho where we change hotels every time to our favorite trip.  We rent a big luxurious VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) house with 4 bedrooms.  Do those still exist?  Anyway, this one cost us about $260 a night and when you split it 4 ways, it is very cheap compared to a hotel.

We decided to have Nannette fly up to Rapid City rather than sit in the car for 20 hours.  I left the house at about 4:00 am so I could miss the Denver rush hour traffic.  It still took me nearly 40 minutes to get through Denver traffic and a couple of construction zones.  I didn't even need to go into any of the HOV lanes.

About the time the sun came up I was getting to close to the Buc-ees gas station so I pulled off to get a some breakfast.  I've only been to Buc'ees once before so it was still a bit overwhelming to look around the place.  I decided to get a breakfast burrito and a breakfast taco.  Neither one was that great.  The eggs were super whipped and spilled all over whenever I took a bite.  The bacon and sausage was over cooked and chipped into tiny pieces that also spilled out with each bite.  Finally the tortilla was huge and wet.  I'd eat another if I need to but I won't be going out of my way for them.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon so I took a selfie with the Buc-ees sign and rising sun over my shoulder.

Breakfast burrito (meh) at Buc-ees

The drive after Buc'ees was just a boring drive up the freeway for 4 more hours.  I turned off the freeway at Orin and turned due East toward the town of Lusk.  At Lusk I turned North toward Newcastle.

I gassed up in Newcastle and decided it was time for lunch.  The gas station had a Taco Johns restaurant but I didn't really feel like eating fast food so I checked google maps for nearby restaraunts and decided to go to Grazer's burgers.  It was a nice little cafe.  I got a cheese steak and fries, but more than that, I got a wake up call.

I was browsing messages on my phone, looking for the address of the house we were renting when my phone suddenly went black.   I was puzzled and pushed the power button, but the screen didn't light up.  I wondered if it had a fatal error, so I held the power button for a few seconds and it started booting up. but almost as soon as it booted, it shut down again.  That really got me worried that maybe some hardware had failed and was preventing the phone booting.

I know my way to Lead so I wasn't worried about getting near the house, but without the actual address I wouldn't be able to unload the car before going to to get the wives to the airport.

I ran out to my car and got my laptop.  The waitress told me the wifi password but when I tried to access email, it wanted a 2 factor authentication which is on my phone..   I tried to open my work version of teams so I could use the phone built into teams, but hit the same snag, no access without 2 factor authentication. So I can't call, I can't email, and I can't get at message history.

It was about this time that I plugged my phone into my laptop to see if I could access any of the data on the phone.  But as soon as I plugged it in, the display popped up showing 1% battery level.  It turns out my phone had not been charging all while I was driving and that's why it was shutting down.

So now I was able to power up the phone and find the address of the house.  I could access maps, but I sure do think I need to figure out another way of generating 2 factor authentications as a backup.  Maybe run an android emulator on my laptop since Authy did away with their PC app.

I was feeling so relieved after that not really a problem scare, I headed North toward Lead. (pronounced LEED as in a vein of ore).  I arrived right about 2;00 which was the original goal and one of the reasons I decided to take a leisurely lunch.  The address was  325 Mountain View Drive an was up a fairly steep hillside with beautiful views out over the town.  We couldn't get into the house until 4:00 but had permission to leave the trailer, bike, and a bunch of boxes outside.

All the food and gear unloaded at 2:00 so I can go to the airport

I needed to unload the car because I needed to head into Rapid City to pick up Nannette and the other 3 wives from the airport.  Angela, Brenda, and Karen few up from Gateway airport in Chandler and Nan flew up from Denver.  The drive was a bit over an hour and I chose to go South West down highway 385 rather than heading North to the freeway.  It took a bit longer but was much prettier.

I gassed up, then bought a 3 cases of water from Dollar General.  Even with all the delay and meandering, I still got to the airport 40 minutes early, but I'd rather be early than late.

Once all the ladies were in the car we headed up the freeway for the rental.  In the mean time, the other 3 guys arrived at the rental and put all the gear into the house.  We called them and decided to meet up at The Lodge in Deadwood for dinner rather than drive to the rental then have to come right back out.

Last time here we really liked The Lodge's food, but this time it wasn't as good but we loved the company.  The Lodge also happens to be a casino, so Nan slipped away and threw some money away at a slot machine.

Massive storm blows in during dinner

Just as we finished dinner, a massive storm blew in.  There had been no warning on the weather app,  but the map now showed deep yellows and reds all around and right over the top of us.. The guys were on motorcycles so we decided just to wait the storm out.  Karen who is normally cold anyway, felt really chilled and decided to drape herself with a few cloth napkins for warmth.  She said it really helped.  The storm got so bad it blew some breakers in the casino.  All the lights went out, but of course, many of the slot machines continued to run and provide ambient light.  The casinos can't let the gambling stop despite a big storm.

We got to the house and settled in for the night.  There was allot of joking and catching up.  It's always good to be with friends.