Down from the Mountains

We’re back from the Black Hills, and one almost needs a vacation after a vacation. Ray, his son Jasper, Yogi and I drove out last Thursday, pausing to meander through the Badlands. With the unusually heavy snow last winter and rain this spring, the Badlands are the greenest they’ll be for another 100 years, according to park rangers. We saw prairie dogs bob up and down in their holes like an arcade game, turkey vultures and maybe an eagle circling the cliffs, and a couple of antelope rams squaring off for a round of head butting.

There were 15 of us in Ray’s extended family group, staying in two cabins near Silver City. It was an ideal vacation, where we either hung out together or split into groups to wander the Hills. Ray and I got to visit friends in Deadwood and Spearfish, and various groups fished, golfed, did horseback trail rides, hiked, or went sight-seeing. We checked out the progress at Crazy Horse monument, and we wandered through Hill City. Yogi obsessively stalked Ray’s one-year-old great niece, and we had to maneuver to keep Yogi away from Ray’s niece’s Shiba Inu, Presley, who’s not so fond of pesky pups.

Ray dropped me off in Spearfish Sunday evening, where I met up with Deirdre, Gloria, and Millie. Then on Monday morning as Ray and his family all headed home, the four of us women drove up to a cabin near O’Neill Pass. The cabin sits at the end of a long drive, in the middle of a meadow at around 6500 feet. No TV, no phone service, no computers—just elk, deer, and at night, bats & coyotes. We walked, read books, talked, played guitars & sang, and toured old haunts in the Hills. One night we aimed a flashlight at a treeline at the edge of the meadow and discovered glowing coyote eyes blinking back at us. It makes one wonder, who are the watchers and who are the watched?

It’s good to be home. It took me a couple days of driving in the Hills to shed my flatlander equilibrium and get over my up-turn-down-turn queasiness. And although I could get used to the spectacular topography of the Hills, I know I would miss the magical peace & the perspective--the sheer vastness of earth & sky--I marvel at here on the prairie.

More rain while we were gone, so things are looking a little tropical, including the foot-high lawn. In peacock news, now we are thirteen—Debbie’s only child is still around, but Wanda’s down from 6 babies to 4. The big boys have dropped most of their train feathers, which are now woven into our wire fence like fringe. No sign of the cats lately. My brother and his family from KS are coming through tonight on their way to MN for the reunion of my dad's side of the family, so we’ll go for dinner at Mom’s. Mom’s having minor surgery on Tuesday, so we’ll miss my family’s reunion this year. I’ll have to start working in earnest soon, getting ready for a new, busy semester, but it is still summer, and Ray calls me the Queen of Procrastination, so for today at least, I’m planning to uphold my office…