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.
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.
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.
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.
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