Category: My life

Last week, my husband and I were sitting on the back patio by the pond. We had just spent the past two days going around buying flowers at different greenhouses – mostly perennials, as I am trying to make landscaping as maintenance-free as possible. The area that was just to the left of the pond is full of colorful perennials, and I love going to the backyard when everything is in full bloom and just marveling at the beauty of it all. My backyard is my little haven, but it needs a couple of things: some privacy (I have two houses that angle toward my backyard and nothing to shield them) and even more color.

I turned to my husband and said, “What if we put yet another perrennial garden to the right of the pond, leaving a little walkway in between? Then in the middle of summer this whole area would be full of flowers.

In typical “me” fashion, I grabbed a can of spraypaint right then (leaving my coffee to get cold) and outlined what I had in mind. My husband liked the idea, so we changed into work clothes and started digging out the grass.

Continue reading “The Power of an Idea”

So, the quarantine days drag on. I think if I lived in a larger town, the stifling feeling of all of this wouldn’t be so bad, but as it is, we have few options for shopping. We have a grocery store. We have a Dollar General. Truthfully, that’s about it. We had one of the last K Marts in the country, but that closed down this past winter. It’s just four people in a too-small house in a too-small town.

Continue reading “The paranoia is thick!”

Although I certainly didn’t just sit on my duff all summer long, for I took lots of trips and was able to take care of a lot of house clutter, the pace of life has certainly picked up in the last week alone.  School started.  I got the stomach flu (which I’m currently still “enjoying”).  My grandpa died.

Out of all those things, it’s the last one that has me reeling.  I can handle hectic weeks.  I can handle the stomach flu.  But I always dreaded the time I’d have to say goodbye to my sweet grandfather.  He was a good man who lived live with vigor.  He beat colon cancer but suffered through countless intestinal issues from the mid-90’s until he died.  Even through it all, he made sure to let those around him know how much he loved them, admired them, and he made sure to thank anyone who helped him.

Writing is definitely cathartic, and I sat down a day after my grandfather’s passing to write a tribute to him.  I wrote it for myself, but I shared it on Facebook so that those who knew my grandfather could enjoy it as well.  Now I’m sharing it with all of you.  Even though you didn’t know him, we can all learn from the gracious way he lived his life.

Continue reading “A tribute to a great man”

Although I have been to all the western states and a handful of the eastern states, I know I haven’t seen all the beautiful places in the United States, or the world, for that matter.  Someday I’d love to see the Smoky Mountains and the rest of North Carolina.  I’d love to see New York City and Boston for the historical sights.  I’d like to see the Civil War Battlefields for the same reason.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do those things, but it’s on my travel bucket list.

Last week my sister and I packed up the car and headed out with the kids to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Growing up in South Dakota, I’ve been to the hills many, many times — for church camp five years in a row, for spring break trips, for random trips with friends and family, etc.   I’ve seen Mount Rushmore so many times that I could probably sculpt a mini version out of clay.  It wouldn’t be good or representative of the actual sculpture.  I never promised that.

When I was in my 20s I started going to Deadwood and became enthralled in the western history of that little town.  In the 80s, Deadwood was brought back from the dead by gambling.  The little town began to attract more and more tourists, which was good.  What wasn’t so good is that now the town is starting to lose its old west feel and is starting to take on an atmosphere of Vegas.  OK, maybe not to that extent, but I hate driving into town only to be greeted with a modern looking hotel.  Some of the older buildings have been razed and replaced with glitzy hotels or bars.  Little by little there is an artificial glaze starting to creep over Deadwood and it’s ruining it for me. I still love the town, but don’t want to spend a lot of time there as I had in the past.

As much as I love the Black Hills, being there makes me depressed about what it is becoming.  We stayed in a pretty touristy rental house in the Terry Peak region.  The house happened to be along the “main drag” of the rental houses and so there was a lot of traffic and a lot of noise.  I did not enjoy sitting on the deck listening to a loud party going on across the valley or hearing every word of the neighbors’ conversations as they hot tubbed.  I much prefer to experience the Black Hills in peace and quiet.  No neighbors.  No tourist traps.  That, however, is becoming harder to find as the years go by.

If you’re ever in the hills, make sure to reserve a couple of days to drive through Spearfish Canyon and through Custer State Park.  Depending on the day, the traffic can be heavy through both of those places, but I’d recommend going early in the morning to beat the other tourists out of bed.  Spearfish Canyon has a lot of stops you can make along the way — different waterfalls, historical sites, trails to hike, etc.  If you get there on a day like we had there — where it was mild weather and cloudless skies, you will probably stop to gawk at the awesome contrast between the blue skies, white rock formations, and green pines.  The colors are so vibrant that I was constantly trying to capture them with my camera.  However, without the help of Photoshop, the digital version is never equal to seeing it with your own two eyes.

Gold mining has always been a part of the hills since it’s been settled and today is no different.  Although the famous Homestake mine ceased operation some years ago, there’s a new one to take its place: the Wharf mine.  This thing is HUGE and is currently adjacent to the Terry Peak region.  There’s a little platform that visitors can go stand on to watch the operations, and my sister and I did take that opportunity.  It’s rather depressing, though.  There you have this open gaping pit that is a flurry of activity — then your eyes stray beyond the open pit to the miles of beautiful pines.  You can’t help thinking of what the same view used to look like without this eyesore of a mine.    Yes, I understand that the Wharf mine is providing millions of dollars in development funds to Lead and neighboring towns.  However, there’s no one who can argue with the fact that the thing is just plain ugly.

Despite having to view the mining operations, the hills have always been and will always be one of my favorite places on this earth.   Most people remember or know the Hills as the place where Mount Rushmore is.  I am here to say that seeing Mt. Rushmore is important and interesting, but after seeing it one or two times, the magic of the place is gone.  (Trust me … I’ve seen Mt. Rushmore about a dozen times.)  If you’ve never been to the hills before, go see Mt. Rushmore (and maybe the Crazy Horse memorial as well), spend some hours in Deadwood, and then spend the rest of your time soaking up the awesome scenery.   The hills are good for the soul; I truly believe that.

School ended nearly a month ago and I am finally getting around to some of the things I’d been putting off, like cleaning my house.  Or breathing.  Showering, too.  Ha ha!  Just kidding.  Well, not about the house.  It’s like an episode of Hoarders some days.

Now that June is nearly over, I have to start turning my brain back on, and that’s always kind of a letdown.  I always reserve June as my “stop thinking and just relax” month.  Trust me — it’s needed after the end of the school year, which is always brutal.  I know teachers sound like whiners when we say this, but until you’ve been there and done that, then you have no idea.

The first vacation I took this year was to Nebraska.  If you’ve read this blog before, then you’re probably thinking that you remember reading something about a Nebraska vacation before.  If that’s the case, then you’d be right.  I did take a Nebraska vacation last year with my honey.  This year we decided to do it again just to make sure we covered the entire state.

Last year we traveled extensively along Highways 20 and 30, marveling at the intensely heavy train traffic, and also venturing off the main roads to explore some rural roads that seemed to stretch into infinity.  Here’s one of my pics from last year:

While some people’s idea of vacations might be lounging on a Florida beach or living the night life in Vegas, my vacations tend to head the opposite direction.  I like take a break from crowds of people.  I like seeing rural life.  I love driving through small towns and taking pictures of the old signage that they still have.  My honey is the same way, so we enjoy the simple things like driving through Nebraska.

This year we took a different path, driving 1800 miles in all.  I used a program called Trip Tracker to chart our journey.  The program drops pins every so many miles and you can put specific tags on the map as well.  It’s hard to read the specific towns we went through unless the map is zoomed in, but this gives you a general idea:

Day one:  Sioux Falls to Valentine, Nebraska.

 

Day two:  Valentine to Scottsbluff.  As you can see, we did not take the direct route.  Lots of stops and driving through small towns along the way ….

 

Day 3:  Scottsbluff to Chadron

Day 4:  Chadron to Grand Island

 

Day 5:  Grand Island to Fremont, home of the Uncle Sam’s antique store that I absolutely LOVE.  Lots of great ’50s antiques and cracked ice tables and chairs!

 

 

The next day we drove from Fremont back to South Dakota.

I picked up these great trays from Uncle Sam’s this year:

I wrote about this store last year after driving through Fremont.  If you are a fan of the 50s and all things retro (especially retro tables and chairs), then make sure you visit this store!  The basement is full of retro goodies:

 

There’s a little something for everyone, I do believe.

Anyway … the trip to Nebraska was so much fun and so relaxing.  I loved seeing the beautiful Nebraska countryside and driving through so many remote small towns that were clinging to life after many decades of decline.  While it was sad to see, it was inspiring to see the efforts that some towns were making to keep themselves relevant.

Although many of the pictures I took this year revolved around old school buildings and the Sand Hills, I managed to shoot some other interesting sights as well:

I absolutely love it when I can see stretches of the old highway alongside the new one.  There’s just something haunting about seeing the asphalt get overtaken with weeds and crumbling as it sits abandoned.

(I’m weird.  I know.)

This water is called the Dismal River, but here it provides a beautiful scene as it winds itself around the valley near Thedford.

 

I had never seen Chimney Rock before, and it was a neat experience to view this landmark that so many pioneers had viewed along the Oregon Trail.  There’s a little cemetery near the viewing spot that provides a gentle reminder that to strike out on the trail was a risk, and some didn’t make it to their destinations.

 

I’m not sure who decided to actually pave Whitman Road, which runs north out of Whitman, but it’s an oddity in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.  This is a one-lane road that stretches on for what seems like eternity.  If you travel it, you will be rewarded with the views of desolate, sparsely populated, yet beautiful country.  The road is rough so I wouldn’t recommend taking your little Ford Focus down this road.  A vehicle with AWD or 4WD would be a good idea.

 

This sign, found in Scottsbluff, made my day.  What a great sign!  So much color and it just conveys happiness.

 

I originally thought this old theater was still in operation … until I realized that the “movie posters” were actually ads for the chiropractor who now operates a business there.

 

As always, I was able to capture some great signs that are still holding onto life along the highways of America.  Long live neon and arrows!