Well, summer has been rolling right along! We made a $15 investment in a pool for our deck and it has been well worth every penny!
In addition to the deck pool, we also go into Miller and use their pool after work some evenings.
I had the opportunity to ride in a wagon train ride from Phillip to Ft. Pierre SD for 3 days. They actually had to cancel the ride for 2 days, prior to my arrival, because a couple horses died from extreme heat. The days I rode were nice and we got an early enough start that we were done riding by early afternoon each day. Here I'm getting a drink with my horse-they had a tanker truck that delivered more than 20,000 gallons of water during the whole trip.
The trail ride followed a historic Indian route along the Bad River. This pictures is of the sun just starting to rise on the final journey of the wagon train. The two of us would get up early in the morning and just watch the world come alive. It was very peaceful and serene. We crossed some beautiful country on the ride!
Darcy came and camped out with me every night. She would have loved to ride but we didn't have a horse for her and she went back to Pierre during the day to watch the girls with her mom. Darcy, the girls and Darcy's mom would come out at supper time and then they had music groups perform and historians speak on the history of the trail. The girls loved seeing all the horses!
We started off in our tent for the first night. That changed pretty quick on the second night when a storm came up and showered us horizontally with torrential rain. We put down all the seats in the suburban and slept in there for the remainder of the trip. The next we battled a ferocious wind storm that shook the suburban and trailer. Dutch, our horse, ended up breaking his halter and tearing off the license plate by rearing back during the storm. Did I mention that our port a potty blew away too? It was an exhilirating experience with rustics twists. It added up to minimal sleep but refreshing. Thank the Lord for suburbans!
There were supposed to be about 250 people on the trail ride with some on horseback and others in wagons. Some dropped out after the first couple days but I think there was close to that number on the last day. There were many more people than that at night when people came to the campsite for the programs and to see friends and family.
You meet a lot of people on these rides and everybody is willing to take pictures. We had an awesome camp site the last night and Darcy rode Dutch around the camp for a while that night.
We had to go up some pretty steep, winding roads the last day but all the teams made it. This is a family I met from White River, SD who is related to our former Principal at Sunshine. It's a pretty small world!
We ended the ride with a parade through Ft. Pierre. It was a great experience and I'm grateful that it worked out for me to do this for a couple of days.
The trail ride ended on Daraby's birthday, so we got a hotel room at the Ramkota that night. Darell, Deb and their kids joined us for a night of swimming and hanging out. We had a party for Daraby on Sunday after church. Grandma Wanda is holding the balloons for the party-Daraby was more excited about the balloons than anything else!
We did a simple picnic lunch with subs and chips and then Darcy's mom made cupcakes for dessert. Daraby preferred licorice!
Daraby loves her cousins and it was great to celebrate with the Beck family!
Enjoy the last couple weeks of summer-the school year is coming up rapidly! We have been blessed with time together with family and friends throughout the summer and are now transitioning into school mode.
Thanks for tuning in!
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