A charming 1928 hotel in Rapid City. An excellent restaurant called the Firehouse in a 1915 fire station building. An excellent set of regional paintings by Harvey Dunn (the illustrator) and great pastels and a lecture by artist Alison Pebworth at the Dahl Arts Center. A wonderful Italian restaurant called Botticelli. Temperatures in the 60s on the Roughlock Trail near Spearfish Canyon. A probable sighting of the rare American Dipper bird near Spearfish Creek. Two men catching three trout near Spearfish Canyon. A lovely waterfall called Roughlock. A beaver, swimming. Clear water filled with brook and brown trout, for which we did not fish.
Climbing Bear Butte, 4425' high. Temperature: 101 degrees. Prayer cloths on the trees as we went up the mountain, one of the 7 sacred Lakota places. Incredible views. A white pelican by a small lake. 4 slices of pizza. White-tailed deer. A deep forest. A winding road. Mt. Rushmore in the distance. Mountain bluebirds. Three pronghorns who ran by as we looked at the bluebirds. Profuse coteries of prairie dogs. Bison on a peaceful prairie. Wild turkeys crossing the road.
Delightful quail at a slow-food restauarant. A quaint little Scandnavian goods store. A prariei falcon. Wonderful fossils at minerals at the South Dakota School of Mines' Museum of Geology. Watching a raptor perch for minutes on end on a limb at the School of Mines.
Seeing a red-breasted nuthatch on a wooded trail by Lake Sheridan. Seeing Mount Rushmore up close. Riding an 1880 train 20 miles through deer-filled woods. Eating lasagna. Touring a museum this morning called the Journey Museum, which helped make sense of it all, at journey's end.
