There is ample green every where you look. Spring has sprung in the Hills and the Spring/Summer transformation from the white Winter has now taken place.
Coming on through Wyoming, we made a "mandatory" stop at Sierra Trading Post at it's headquarters store (and a large one it is) in Cheyenne. Of course Marilyn could not leave without a couple pair of new summer shoes (O.K., yes they're cute...I guess...).
We delayed our start out of Cheyenne for about an hour while a very heavy black layer of clouds along with a good deal of wind, lighting and thunder which produced a sudden but short lived rain storm with some initial light hail. The sun soon broke through again, and we were on our way.
From Cheyenne we headed northeast to Newcastle for the evening and a great dinner. Along the way we saw a number of Pronghorn Antelope. The rivers and streams are running at about full capacity it appeared, mostly from melting snow-packs in the higher elevations.
We awoke to more sunshine and less wind than the evening before. Once we got breakfast out of the way, we continued our journey northeast from Wyoming into South Dakota and the Black Hills. We stopped for lunch in Rockerville - The Gas Light Saloon, which is a large restored saloon and restaurant that serves surprisingly good food and great libations. Of course at this point we are only about 20 miles from our Rapid City destination at the Elks Lodge on the east side of town.
We are now settled in at the Elks Lodge RV Park, along side the Elks beautiful 18-hole golf course that is situated along Rapid Creek.
There are some Memorial Day festivities planned in and around the city, as well as throughout the Black Hills as well over this holiday weekend.
Marilyn and I hope that all of our friends and family have a very safe, relaxing and fun Memorial Day weekend! If you haven't already broken out the barbie grill, then ya better get busy, as some serious barbie time is right around the corner now.
It is great to be back in our "home base" (for those that may not know, Marilyn and I moved our residence from California to South Dakota back in 2005, when I finally took to full-retirement. SD is a much friendlier state for retirees than that of CA. There is no state income tax, no property tax, no inheritance tax, no estate tax, and the state sales tax is only 3% on vehicles, and 4% on any other taxable sales goods. The vehicle licensing fees are only a small fraction of CA (example- one care is only $26 a year, another is only $42 a year), so licensing for all of our three cars and our 43' Monaco Dynasty motorcoach is less than $300 per year here in SD, whereas in CA it would well exceed several thousand dollars for the same period and vehicles. There are a number of additional positive reasons for making our residency in SD, but I think you probably get the drift here anyhow. So this is our "Home", if you will, and it is a great place to have it located. Nice scenic area, a lot to do and see, and of course, some great local folks to boot. A hard combination to beat, for sure.
Well, enough for today, but I will return in another day or two and let you in on our adventures here in the area. Hope that this finds all of you in good health and getting along well these days.
-Jim and Marilyn
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment