Touring Deadwood

For years I have wanted to take one of the several tours of historic Deadwood. This year I did my homework: found the names of the tour companies, the cost, the times of departure, and the departure location. We were in Deadwood by 8:00 AM on Thursday to watch Slack Time at the rodeo grounds. We had the afternoon free. Curt hit the gambling halls and I did the tours. Perfect, except for the weather. It rained and sprinkled during most of my one hour tour. But I did get to the places I wanted to see and heard the info that had been missing.

This is Deadwood's most famous person...Wild Bill Hickok

According to my tour guide, he lived in Deadwood & for only 60 some days,

Wild Bill was shot while playing cards in Saloon #10.


Buried next to Wild Bill is

Calamity Jane's grave in  Mt. Moriah Cemetery.


It is also home to Potato Creek Johnny

the gold prospector who found a 4 ounce gold nugget, the largest found in the Black Hills until a couple of years ago.


Also buried in this section of Mt. Moriah is

a madame, owner of 4 brothels in communities in the Black Hills region.


The cemetery overlooks the town of Deadwood, keeping watch over those who live there and those who come to visit.

Rodeo Photos

Rodeo Photos are on the other blog

A Picture Now & Then From Coleen

Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner owes a gambling hall in Deadwood SD. He also owns and operates a tour company and a band, which was playing in Cheyenne WY this week during the Cheyenne Rodeo.

We had lunch at the Midnight Star on Thursday. Costumes from a number of his movies were displayed in the sports bar.

 Clothing from Robin Hood movie, starring Kevin Costner

Clothing from Dances With Wolves, starring Kevin Costner

Just one of many gambling halls along the Main Street of Deadwood.

Driving Through Pierre SD

We were interested in driving through Pierre on Monday on our way to the Hills as we had yet to see our state's capital after it made national news earlier this summer with all the water released in the Missouri River.

Pierre sits along the banks of the Missouri River. Many campgrounds, ball fields, golf courses are also along the Missouri River. We didn't see any of them...they are all underwater.

This is what we did see as we drove through town and stopped for lunch.

The Fed Ex building sits along the major highway through Pierre.

It is about 4 blocks from the river.

 Hardee's is in the same area.

 A block or two closer to the river is the Capital Journal,

the local newspaper. This is the protection around that building.

Can you imagine the smell if those bales had gotten wet?

This boat is ready for any emergency, 

sitting a couple of blocks from the river.

 We stopped at Perkins for lunch.

This was the sandbagging along the front of the building.

It was closed for a month, during the worst of the flooding threat.

 Perkins is very near the river.

It did not have any water damage as the dikes have done their job.

But the sand bags were never intended to last several months.

They are beginning to deteriorate. What a mess that will cause!

More about the Missouri River in a future post.

Willa Plays Fetch

Here is another short clip from Sunday afternoon of Willa playing fetch with Rocco.

Willa Learns to Throw

We got to spend some time with Willa on Sunday afternoon. Mommy and Daddy went to a movie. While they were gone, we did some of our own movies with Willa.

She has learned to throw since we were there last. Here she is playing fetch with her pal, Rocco.

Face Lift

No, not my Face Lift. The house Face Lift.

It seems like all we have done this summer is move furniture and 'stuff' out of rooms and then move it back into the rooms. This time, we have been working on the hallway and office.

We stripped the wall paper from the top half of the walls, cleaned the walls of the glue,  filled the nail holes, varnished the wainscot, painted the trim boards and baseboards, and painted the doorways and doors. (Painted=sanded, primed, painted, painted, varnished) There are seven doors and doorways in this project!

The bathroom door is done and has been put back in place. Whoopee! I am going to LOVE the look of the white woodwork!

We haven't painted the bathroom walls though they are on the list. We might do it yet this summer/fall.

We stripped the wall paper border in the office, varnished the wainscot, painted the trim boards, base boards and window,  and removed the carpet uncovering the original hardwood floor.

Hardwood floor restorers sanded, stained and varnished the office last Thursday and Friday. The odor was atrocious! They attempted to seal off the smell with this high tech covering. It helped, but was still very strong and noxious.

We did survive and this is the result unveiled Saturday morning. It is beautiful and we love it!

The wood in the front of the photo is the laminated hallway flooring. The back wood floor is from the office. Originally, the hallway was covered with cork floor tiles. They were beyond restoration, so were replaced about 10 years ago with the laminate, which I love.

On August 8, the ceilings and walls of the office and hallway will be textured and painted. There will also be new light fixtures and light switches.

And all of this 'stuff' will be taken out of the guest bedroom and put back in the office. Well...most of it will go back. There is more in the back garage! Yes, too much stuff! But the office is also my craft and project room. The 'someday I will do it' collecting room. My 10x10 'girl cave'.

My Space.

Usually this continuous mess would drive me nuts, but we are leaving town for 10 days. Out of sight, out of mind. I will survive knowing there is an end in sight.

You and I will have to wait until mid-August to see the end result.

Flora & Dragonflies

It seemed like a good idea to take some pictures of my flowers, again, before the heat destroys them. Here are some new ones.

 the evening primroses

 carnations

lilies

 the marigolds in the garden

the candy corn

For some reason there has been an unusual number of dragon flies this summer. We had some very pretty blue ones flitting about, but this was the kind out and about the day I had my camera.

I don't think there are as many as in June.

Maybe the heat has gotten to them, too.

And finally...

the cucumber plants

We've had trouble growing cukes the last few years.

Not so this year. I've got them attached to the trellis and 

have picked half a dozen for eating.

The BirdFeeder

This month my/our book club read Room by Emma Donoghue. For our discussion one of our members suggested a quaint little eating place in a nearby small town. So Friday we loaded in the van and headed north to Twin Brooks and

the BirdFeeder.

The place seats about 20 people, so reservations are necessary. Decor was mostly bird related, but included other interesting for sale items.

We started our lunch with drinks, raspberry ice tea and lemon water, and birdseed (which we didn't get a picture). Birdseed is a mix of sunflower seeds, soy nuts, wheat seed and yogurt covered almonds and raisins served in a small metal nut cup.

There were two kinds of soup on the menu on Friday. I chose the fresh pea soup. It was delicious!

Isn't the presentation cool with the pea pod on the side of the bowl? The other soup was fresh vegetables and chicken. Also very tasty they said.


Then it was time for the sandwich. Our choices: chicken salad with pecans, roasted pork served with a sweet pepper dipping sauce or deli meats all on made fresh that morning, home-made bread. YUM!

 chicken salad

pork roast

She also makes her own veggie chips (tomato & spinach) and shared her recipe with us. The salad was made using local produce from the local Farmer's Market and had a yummy Vidalia onion & poppyseed dressing. The group traded sandwich halves, taking half home because the dessert was next.



We had a choice of fresh peach pie, coconut cream pie, Girdilla chocolate brownie with walnuts and coconut filling and served with ice cream and chocolate sauce, and

 my favorite: lemon cream

 fresh rhubarb and raspberry

and fruit pizza
All very delicious. We almost licked our plates, it was that good.

We also got a small gift for dining there. We each got a home-made book mark. Pretty neat to get a gift for eating delicious food!


It was a unique culinary experience and we plan to have book club there again, next summer. Thanks Diane for the suggestion. We loved it!

And yes, we did discuss the book over dessert. Judy thought the book was titled Door. We've had a good laugh over her 'senior moment'. The book store staff is still shaking their heads over that one!

Thursday with Willa

I had a doctor's appointment in SF on Thursday so we made it a day to visit Willa and her parents. Willa did something that just melted our grandparent hearts. She walked up to each of us (at different times) and held out her arms so we would pick her up and hold her. Grandpa was sitting in the chair when she approached him. She sat so contentedly on his lap for several minutes. She made Grandpa's day!

Grandma had found a sturdier, noisy push toy for Willa. But she moves so fast, I didn't get a picture of Willa in action.

She is so good about entertaining herself. She toddled to her toy area, and grabbed one of her favorite toys...the pail of stacking tubs. She can play with those for a very long time before she tires of them.

She was playing with her tongue, moving it from side to side and vocalizing at the same time. I love how she sticks her little tongue out of her mouth.

What a special little sweetheart! She gives kisses now and she gave them to us when we left. Awww...