Photo Blog from Exploring the Black Hills

Alrighty so my mom and I had an absolutely amazing day tooling around the Black Hills today and saw a ton of things so instead of explaining it all I am just going to post all our lovely pictures and tell it through them!!

This is Pactola Lake, it was absolutely beautiful

First to Mt. Rushmore. Mom and I were really blown away by the size of it, which I guess we shouldn't have been but it was truly picturesque.

We made a Mountain Goat friend at Mt. Rushmore!!

My "artistic" shot as mom calls it.

Next to Crazy Horse. It was a neat monument and I am sure it will be great once it is finished but I am unconvinced it will be finished in my lifetime!!

This is what it will eventually look like but in seventy years they've only done what you see above. Still worth the sight to just see the size versus Mt. Rushmore, its even BIGGER!!

Made a friend here too.

Next to Custer State Park. Mom and I really REALLY wanted to see the buffalo and this was the first one we saw.

Then a momma and her babies crossed the road in front of us.

Then we got into a little crunch. A heard of about 400 were in the road/crossing it so we got stuck for a while.

And stood about 2 feet away from our car.

Finally they crossed and this is them roaming on the plane.

Then we ran into burros!! Also very friendly with people.

Also saw some Mountain Sheep!!

We then drove down the Needles Highway. There were 3 tunnels like this and it was awesome!!!

Me with the Cathedral Spires behind me :)

This is the Needle Point, it marks the beginning of the highway.

Finally ended the day with a wine tasting at the Prairie Berry Winery and this Red Ass Rhubarb was Raspberry and Rhubarb and was my favorite but not mom's.

Small Town Living and Oddities in the Attic

Alrighty so this week so far has gone very odd. Ignoring the fact that me being in South Dakota itself is odd it has just been different than expected.

First thing that happened this week was I went into town to get some ink for my work printer, because apparently it ran out of all of its ink at the same time :(. I walk into the store that supplies my company and there is this little old woman behind the counter. She had on old 50's style cat eye glasses, complete with rhinestones and as I walk up to the counter she says "Oh you must be the new girl from Washington everyone's been talking about." Wait, WHAT??? A. Do I really stick out that much I mean its not like I am wearing anything DC related and B. Who is everyone, how do they know about me, and why are they talking about me? I am like 98% sure I've never seen this woman before but she knew I was new to town. Not in a bad way, she was very nice and asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner sometime (I politely declined) but it was very funny, sweet, and unnerving at the same time.

Second, all is lined up for my first public programming event to go off amazingly!! This is awesome but also is requiring a ton of very quick extensive planning. I am doing Halloween Tours (they're actually called Spirited Tours) at my new museum. Which looks like this, in case anyone missed it!

Looks pretty cool right?? It's a perfect place for a haunted house esque tour. Especially considering there are literally a dozen ghost stories about the place and locals refuse to walk on the same side of the street as it. So I have been spending a ton of time up in the attic figuring out what stuff we have to use in the tours (like stuff they used in the past, not artifacts) which would be fine except like any really old house its not entirely sealed right so there are some bug issues. So to isolate that problem I've been freezing the stuff I bring down for 48 hours (standard museum procedure) to kill any possible bugs before I can use it. Well I finally was able to take my first group of things out of the freezer today and put my second group in! Yay progress!!! Alas duty calls and after getting them out I wasn't able to break into the boxes to see what I had to work with right away.

Later in the day, after dealing with the most patronizing, condescending, rude visitor I have ever had the displeasure to meet in my life (he literally asked me if I was qualified to do this job and asked me completely seriously if I could count and demanded I prove it to him) I decided it was time to break open the box. And Look what I found inside...

Hahahaha. There was a bunch of Halloween stuff as expected and it is my job to make sure everything still could fit someone (i.e. wasn't ripped) and all the lights worked. So I got paid to dress up and play with black lights today. It was fun. Oh yea and there was this hat too!!

Much prettier than me in a mask. Antwan really liked this pic thus reinforcing my belief that I was made to wear birdcage veil hats! Anyone with ideas on how I could incorporate them into everyday fashion please feel free to speak up.

Lastly, these came in today!!!

Look it's all official, I have a business card that says I'm a curator!! :D I was/am very excited! Well Mama Van Evra is coming to visit tomorrow for a few days so I'm sure I'll be posting some more with pictures soon. Love you and miss you all!

Long Distance

So I know it's late for most of you on the east coast, subtract 2 hours and that's what time it is in South Dakota. Either way it's late. It rained most of the day here so I stayed inside and hung some more pictures watched my Ohio State Buckeyes decimate Cal 52-34 and during most of the game I got to talk to my man.

Most of you know him, some of you are lucky enough to have met him but on the off chance that someone starts reading this that doesn't know me or my life I suppose I should explain. He is amazing and that is quite literally the best/only way to put it. He puts up with me (which is no easy task: anyone who has ever argued with me can vouch for that) and he loves me. We met a while back and it's kinda been awesome ever since, I can't see myself with anyone else. He makes me laugh on my worst days and listens when I am making absolutely no sense and even helped edit my dissertation. I couldn't ask for a better man, mainly because there isn't one.

But you see he's not here with me yet. He's going to move out here eventually and I know then it will be amazing and well worth the wait. Right now sucks though. It's Skype conversations where we get interrupted half a dozen times and phone calls and texts. And I shouldn't be complaining because even with the interruptions Skype is a wonderful thing and it's not his fault it's just what happens because he has to Skype me while he's at work but...it sucks. I love him more than anything and we've always been a long distance relationship but this is different, it's so much farther. Instead of counting hours until I get to see him it's months or weeks. I can handle that too but I miss the little things so much.

I miss riding in the car and holding hands. I miss the way when he smiles at me with that I love you look in his eyes he has a parenthesis on his left cheek. I miss the feeling of his hand in mine. I could go on forever.

I love South Dakota and the people and my little town here. But lying in bed wearing one of his nerdy t-shirts sprayed with the last of his cologne I managed to swipe curled up with the stuffed animal he bought me when we first started dating, I really really miss him.  

Hiya Folks!!

So I know I promised to start one of these and I am FINALLY getting around to it!!! I'll get some pictures up soon and start telling y'all what its like out here in the Badlands!!