Papa and Nana On the Go   GRANDPARENT RAMBLINGS – AS FAR AS THE MONEY WILL TAKE US

What a wonderful day in the Black Hills.  Nothing black about it.  Bright beautiful skies most of the time, perfect temperatures, a downhill ride.  Makes 18 miles easy.  Saw a kingfisher fishing, cows mooing, water gurgling, wheels pressing crisply into the fine gravel and sand.  Raptors soaring overhead.  At times we were totally alone in this world, this magnificent creation.   We shuttle up with a couple of gentlemen from Florida and Georgia.  We started talking about a restaurant in Georgia and turns out he lives in that same town.  His family has a house in Maggie Valley.  Small world sometimes.

Papa, Nana preroll picture. Please see the photos on the separate page for the Mickelson Trail.

We rode on the Mickelson Trail.  Its 100 miles from Deadwood to Edgemont but we only had time for 18.  I may have to come back for the rest.  Tunnels, rushing streams but gentle brooks through meadows.  Utter solitude and beauty for much of the trail and best of all it was down hill most of the way.  We then drove to Billings, Montana and finally had time for a swim.  Along the way there, though, it is so hard to describe the vistas that seem to stretch completely around the world back to the other horizon.  Showers in the far south, brooding, rolling clouds to the west and blue skies to the north.  As we passes the Little Bighorn Battlefield, with all this regions emptiness, probably depressing to many, it is easy to see why wars were fought over it.  Since it is indescribable I guess I better stop trying.  However, we did detour to a famous landing sight for aliens.  If you remember the superb documentaryClose Encounters of the Third Kind, the events of which somehow were never reported in the new media, about the crazy many who made mountains out of mashed potatoes ( I new potatoes had eyes but “toes”?  Shouldn’t they be potateyes?) because he had been contacted by the alien landing party.  I wonder if that guy will every come back.

Famous Alien landing sight. Though only the ramp actually touched the ground with a bunch of anorexic nudists from another star system.