The last one... continued

We spent the rest of the night planning our “9 hour drive” from South Dakota to Wyoming to Boise. After dinner, we invited Roger and Eileen over for drinks and a fire. As the night was drawing to an end, and the fire was burning out, Christine decided she would “borrow” some wood from our biker neighbor Mark. It should be noted, that the wood she took was from his fire and was flaming at the time. It looked like she was carrying the Olympic torch with an oven mitt. In her defense, It was on fire, so Mark wasn’t gonna be taking it with him the following day it was being wasted over there in his fire pit with no one sitting around it.

The next morning at breakfast, we had some more fabulous biscuits and gravy (which by the way is a whole new entity we need to get into later on.) As we were devouring those, Roger and Eileen came over to say goodbye. We exchanged contact information and we look forward to hearing from them as they read the blog. (Hi guys!)

Shortly after breakfast, we packed up our car and headed up to Lead, South Dakota to hit the horseback riding trails. As we got to the Black Trail Ranch, we were greeted by Barbara and 3 of her dogs in a pickup. We jumped in the truck, and off we went to learn a bit about the Lead area. Barbara was full of tremendously interesting facts. We learned about the gold mining days of Lead and the men who were involved. At 26, Phil is a nearly dead man where the max age is usually 30 or so. When you think about that, a 15 year old boy is actually a middle aged man.

Then after another short ride around the ranch, we met our horses. Phil was given a beautiful black “show” horse named Patriot. Since he was supposed to be a show horse, he was very expensive, but in the words of Barbara, “he’s just too stupid to train.” So instead, he’s there to be ridden by the guests. I on the other hand was given a beautiful brown horse whose name described him perfectly, “Dusty”. He was a gorgeous and calm horse. Before we took off, she handed both Phil and I a stick, not a large stick, just a bit bigger than a twig. When I asked what the stick was for, she replied with the best possible answer, “Just to tell him that, Hey… I’ve got a stick!” She then went on to tell us that, this was to use with the horse and to tap his belly with when we wanted him to go.

As Barbara, Mindy (I think that was her horse’s name), Dusty and myself walked through the trails, we’d turn around to see Phil and Patriot off somewhere in the trees, a ways away from the trail. And as hard as Phil would kick him, or use his stick and say walk on, Patriot just stood there and ignored him. It wasn’t Phil’s fault, Patriot was just stubborn, and as Barbara explained it, “I think he does it just to entertain himself.”



After the trail the ride, Barbara helped us plan out our route to Idaho. She and I are going to contact each other during the school year so she can work with me and my students to teach them about rocks, and plants, and many other natureific things.

We left Black Trail Ranch with all intentions of heading to Sturgis to walk around the bike rally, just to experience it for a bit. However, we took a wrong turn (surprise, surprise) and ended up heading away from the rally. Since we were sort of in a time crunch to get to Idaho we decided against turning around. However, 25-30 years from now when I finally have my bike, we’ll head back to South Dakota and hit up Sturgis! :o)

We had plotted out the 8 or 9 hour drive from South Dakota to Boise in Phil’s head, however, Phil never took into account this state called Wyoming.

Wyoming took up the majority of the drive but it really has some absolutely spectacular scenery to look at. There were the Big Horn Mountains, that while long and cumbersome to travel across might have been one of the most beautiful scenery we’ve seen thus far.

After the Mountains, we approached Yellowstone National Park. As we got closer to the park, we saw a blinking sign that read:
Wild Fire Ahead
Drive with Caution

Once we saw the sign, we quickly realized that the cloud we originally thought was stemming from a looming thunderstorm was actually a smoke cloud coming from the fire. As we got closer, the smell of smoke got stronger and stronger. We began to even see little glowing areas in the woods which only grew bigger as we drove closer. It was a very intense sight to see, horrifying even. We got past the fire (or so we thought) and pulled into a “cut out” in the road, which happened to be the “Fire Fighter’s Memorial”. Slightly Ironic. There, along with another couple, we took pictures and watched in horrified awe just thinking and hoping that everyone on the mountain fighting the fire is okay.

As I mentioned before, we thought we had passed the fire, however, as we drove along, it only got worse. The little glowing areas were not much larger glowing areas. At one point, we saw flashing lights in the road. Cars were parked along the side of the street and people were out talking and taking pictures. It looked as though there were cops up ahead turning people around. Phil was getting ready to turn around on his own when we decided to go a little further to see the fire.

Luckily for us, they weren’t turning people around, and we were able to continue on with our route. However, when we got to the area with the flashing lights, neither one of us could believe how close the fire was to the road. It was absolutely intense. From the passenger seat, I was about an arms length away from the firemen and cops. And they were just on the edge of the fire. We passed on, and once on the other side of the fire, we saw another cut out where many more people were standing and watching.
As Barbara had told us while we were riding, to them, fires are their largest natural disaster. And that’s truly what this was. We did see a few Red Cross trucks there to help out as well.

About an hour or so later, we arrived at the front gate of Yellowstone National Park. The park ranger greeted us and excitedly told us how lucky we were because we were going to see another fire. We found it a bit odd that he was excited about this natural disaster, he sounded like Jim Cramer talking up Valero Stock.

Despite the darkness, as we drove through the park, we were still able to see the natural beauty and could only wish it were daytime. We arrived at the area where the ranger had told us we’d see the other fire. We could definitely smell it, and could see a bit of a glow through the trees, but this one seemed not to nearly as big as the first one.

We continued on driving, until we reached Boise. We learned some very fascinating things about Idaho when we were in Boise. We can’t wait to share these things with you in our next blog, “Ohhh Boise!”.