A Friend needs our prayers

I just receive an email telling us that a good friend of ours was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident and is in a coma. I would like to ask all of my friends to pray for him and his wife. Their names are John and Kay Cox. John has been a real trooper as he has been fighting cancer for sometime. Now this, please pray for God's mercies to give them both strength to deal with whatever lays ahead. John loved this blog and followed it daily. He has been looking forward to he and Kay taking a trip similar to our Alaska trip.

First Moose Ever in Custer State Park, SD

This moose is really stirring up interest. It has been in all the local papers, as they have never had a moose here before. It sure would be nice if we had a female to keep him here!!

Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota

July 2 - Today we went for a very nice ride. We drove up to Spearfish Canyon and what a sight. It was just lovely. The canyon walls were absolutely magnificent and the waterfalls breathtaking. We learned that the final few scenes in the movie Dances with Wolves was made here. We are going to have to watch that movie again!! We went through a fairly good thunder storm in the canyon, it seemed to make the thunder much louder.

After the canyon we drove up to Sturgis. This evidently is a meca for motorcyclists! Every year thousands of them descend on the town. They say in the park for several days that is all you will hear - not looking forward to that. However, Ft. Mead is in Sturges and we found it to be one of the best historical museums we have ever been to. It is small, but filled with items from the original fort and history of the surrounding area.

We took back roads to get home, came around a curve and we both said at the sametime, “What is all that white stuff!!” You guessed, it was SNOW. It appeared they must have had at least a couple of inches for the amount we were seeing, there was even slush of the road in one place. Naturally it was very wet and melted quickly. Hard to believe snow on July 2nd!!!

Never get tired of Needles Hwy.

More pictures of Needles Hwy. It is so awesome!!!

Bear Country, Custer, SD

These are some pictures we took at Bear Country today. I Really felt sorry for these animals that are kept in very small areas.

My walk to work!!!

The other morning Jeanne and I were walking to work and right on top of the mountain we saw several mountain goats. We both got lots of pics of them. We were at work about a half hour and there were five goats in the yard. We went out to get more pictures and hear bleatting - before long there were three adorable babies. The above pictures show what a traffic jam they cause. These are the same goats we saw the other day.

Last night we were having dinner and noticed a lot of cars on the road. I noticed something dark go behind the house across the street. We went out and they said it was a moose!!! I said, "You mean an elk", as there are no moose in Custer. They said no, it is a moose. I ran to get my camera and couldn't find it. Fortunately Doug had his video and got video of it. It was indeed a moose!!! There are not supposed to be moose in Custer!!! We talked with one of the rangers and they said it was a first!!!!

1880 Railroad Steam Engine

The other day we went on a nice ride on the original 1880 train from Hill City to Keystone. It was fun and I took tons of pictures. It was only a 20 mile trip, but we definately enjoyed it.