STURGIS (SD) TO TURTLE RIVER STATE PARK (ND): DAY ONE

Photo below: Crossing the Missouri River in South Dakota.

Halfway across South Dakota, the Missouri river marks the change in time zone from Mountain Time to Central Time. For the past week, in Sturgis, South Dakota, we have been on Mountain Daylight Time. By 4:50 am MDT, the sky was sufficiently light that Luna felt it was time for us all to arise. We disagreed, but she persisted for as long as it took to change our minds.

Tonight we are camped less than 10 miles to the east of the Missouri River, at West Whitmore Recreation Area (read our review and view photos here) on Central Time. At 9:15 pm, the sun is just setting, so it will be 10 pm before night falls. In the morning, daylight should arrive an hour (or more) later… maybe there will be no insistent kitty demands until 6 am??

Once you leave far western South Dakota - the Black Hills area - behind, you are a schooner traversing an undulating prairie of tall green grass. On the highway we traveled, settlements were widely spaced and we saw neither people nor vehicles in abundance.

At one point, we came upon several miles of road construction. When we stopped at the flagman, there was one other vehicle stopped, a motorcycle. Ten minutes later, when the pilot car arrived to guide us through the construction, our group had grown to a whopping FOUR vehicles!

Traveling the construction zone, we were surprised to see that the yellow road dividers are installed by hand. Two guys, each with a 5 gallon bucket of adhesive backed dividers, walk the center line. At the specified interval, they peel the backing strip off of the adhesive, toss it onto the road to be blown into the prairie grass, and stick the divider onto the freshly flattened asphalt. Is an anti-littering sensibility something that develops only when population per square mile rises to a number above, say, 5??

Due to the time change, we arrived at our campsite at 5 pm. At 6 pm, when we headed off for a walk, the sun was beginning to lower and light the tall, waving prairie grasses between the campground and the river. Our trail was simply mown out of the grass, a swath 4 feet wide. Pheasants shot up from time to time, and a few hawks circled.

I thought, not for the first time today, that South Dakota must have looked like heaven to pioneer farmers heading west, unaware of the blizzards that would plague them in winter. In summer - or at least this summer - it is lush, lush, lush. Tall green grasses, ponds and standing water, so rare in the west, are abundant and blue. I was ready to become a farmer myself.


Our overnight stop was on the shore of Lake Oahe, a large lake made by damming the Missouri River. We were one of very few campers that didn't have a fishing boat - this is obviously a fisherperson's paradise, with a boat launch ramp and a large, professional-grade stainless steel fish cleaning station.

Still, something about Breakfast at the Bait Shop... well, I guess I'm just not that hungry!

WRAPPING UP A BUSY WEEK IN STURGIS, SD

Ahhhhhhhhhhh........ It is Saturday night, the end of a long, busy week. We spent all day today wrapping up the loose ends of the transition into our new volunteer job as Membership Coordinators for our Boomer RV group. The Boomerang ends tomorrow, and I think everyone but us is leaving in the morning.

We are staying an extra day to catch up on "normal life" before we head north to meet friends in North Dakota. Our refrigerator is almost bare - a rare occurance in this household - so a trip to the grocery store can't be put off before departure. Laundry, cleaning, all the usual chores are waiting for us to have a bit of time to spare.

Last night, we threw a pizza party, Odel's big project for the week. When he wasn't learning about his new volunteer job, he was selling tickets for the party. By the end of the day on Thursday, he had sold 45 tickets - just about everyone who was still here on Friday night.

Using several 2-for-1 Pizza Hut coupons, we ordered 18 large pizzas in five varieties, quantities determined using a super-secret formula divised by Odel and laboriously calculated each evening prior to the event. He picked up the pizzas at 5:30, and shortly before 6 pm. we were setting up the buffet table (top photo).

I think it was 5:56 pm when the hungry hordes, seated at picnic tables in front of Odel, began pounding the tables and chanting, but Odel held firm while we made ready. Here he is, laying some ground rules (no trampling, and only take two slices on your first pass) as he opens the proceedings.

As you can see, the action was fast and furious! Diners on the left, me and my assistant Elinor on the right. As fast as the boxes were emptied, Elinor and I had made sure the next pizza was ready to go, and Elinor's husband Bob replaced empty boxes with full ones.

Odel's job was to take the tickets he had sold in exchange for a paper plate and a napkin, so he was out of the fray in this photo.

The party was a roaring success, and Odel's careful calculations paid off - after everyone ate all they wanted, only three pieces were left!

THE OLD AND THE NEW IN DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA

Ha, ha, ha! On our way to the Boomerang here in Sturgis, SD, I imagined all sorts of interesting day trips and photo ops, history and hiking, lots of interesting stories and photos, with plenty of relaxed time in the evening to add them to the blog.

HAH!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Odel and I are taking over one of the volunteer positions for the Boomers, Membership Coordinator. Our plan was to get together with the current Membersip Coordinator, Bob, during our week-long stay here at the rally and transfer the responsibilities from him to us.

We didn't totally realize what we were getting into (understatement). I've loaded three - or is it four - new software programs on the computer, and need to learn each of them... which appears to be only about 1/3 of the job. We are spending a couple hours a day with Bob learning the procedures, and another couple hours a day on "homework" - loading software and data, learning new programs, going over our notes and trying to figure out how we can drain his brain before we go our separate ways at the end of the week.

Reading over the above paragraph, it sounds suspiciously like a complaint... but it isn't! We are having a great time learning all this new "stuff". On our way to Sturgis, I had a few qualms - mostly, that I had lost my "edge" and would not be able to mobilize enough brain cells to get focused and organized again. I guess it is like riding a bicycle - once a detail fanatic, always a detail fanatic. We both are enjoying learning a new "job" again.

When we were in Sacramento, we bought, for a $5 donation to D.A.R.E., a Pizza Hut folder that has 10 coupons for "Buy 1, get 1 Free" deals. We visited the Pizza Hut in Sturgis to see if they would honor the coupons (as the very fine print says, "good at participating dealers"). When the answer was "yes", we volunteered to organize a Pizza Party here at the Boomerang for Friday night. That has been Odel's big project: while I stay at home working on the computer during the Happy Hour socializing, he is in the thick of things selling tickets and signing up Boomers for the party.

Somehow, between our two volunteer jobs, the time we would usually spend hiking and exploring has slipped away. Oh, and we also had to renew our driver's licenses ($8 apiece and 30 minutes or so) and get some minor medical work done... and attended a potluck last night, which takes a bit of preparation...

This morning, we met with Bob at 8 am (now a standing appointment) for a two hour session on our new responsibilities. Odel sold more Pizza Party tickets, we ate lunch - and took off for some leisure time and badly needed exercise. YAY.

Our destination was Deadwood, about 30 minutes away. Although we went there to pick up a good biking/walking trail, Deadwood's claim to fame is this: Deadwood is where Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back while playing cards, and where he is buried on Mt. Moriah next to Calamity Jane. In the top photo, you can see Odel admiring the memorial statue to the man.

As we were leaving the memorial and heading back to the car, what did we see on the sidewalk coming our way but a touring group riding Segway Personal Transporters, and I took a quick photo. What would Wild Bill have made of that??