Listing Through Life

On Sunday afternoon, three of us hiked the Sunday Gulch trail in Custer State Park. My wife has an ongoing problem with her ankle that causes her a lot of pain. She was OK with the relatively flat trail around Devil’s Tower, but couldn’t handle the climbing and uneven surfaces on this one.

The trail starts at the base of the dam on Sylvan Lake and goes straight down through a boulder field. The “path” is a handrail made of metal pipe that winds down, through and over the huge rocks.

We finally stopped going down. The trail ran through some quiet woods for a spell. We met two older couples in this stretch, walking the trail in the other direction. They asked us how the trail was ahead, and I told them it was steep and rough. They already looked winded, and I wondered how they were going to make it up that boulder field.

The whole time we were climbing down I kept thinking of the hike back up and out. But as it turned out, the climb out was a steady incline on a dirt path that lasted for probably a mile. It was definitely uphill, but not unbearable. I didn’t take any photos of that stretch because the path was sandwiched between a power line clearing and a road and wasn’t very spectacular. About halfway up, we met another couple. The woman looked absolutely bushed — and she’d been going downhill the whole time. She asked if they were almost back to Sylvan Lake, and I had to break it to her that she wasn’t even close and the trail was hard up ahead. She would have been better off turning around, but I didn’t say that to her. I wonder if she made it or if she’s still down there.

We finally got up to lake level and had perhaps a half mile hike on the rim with amazing views.

When we got back to the lake, we decided to hike around it before heading back up to the lodge. We lost the trail somehow and found ourselves blazing a trail through the woods. We kept going down hill, but I knew if we kept going we’d have to meet the other end of the path — and we did, about a third of the way down the boulder field, which meant that we got to climb down and up the hardest section.

The weather was perfect and it was fun just to be out and about. I hope the lady stuck at the bottom of the gulch is enjoying it as much as I did.

In 2000, the fine folks of Rapid City decided to put life-sized statues of all the presidents on street corners in the downtown area. We parked and walked two blocks up one street and two blocks back down the next street and saw probably 30 of them. I only took photos of the following:

James Madison

Bill Clinton. Yea, I know.

Ronald Reagan

John Adams

Martin Van Buren

Harry S Truman

We searched for restaurants in Rapid City and found Colonial House. It didn’t look like much from the outside, and if I had been on my own, I might have passed by in search of something else. The inside was more interesting. The room we were in had photos of the old west, several paintings of the last supper, a TV with a college football game, and a shelf full of ceramic figurines — all within about 15 feet. I ordered ribs, which were tasty and a piece of key lime pie that was amazing.

Dinosaur Park, on a hill above Rapid City, South Dakota, was constructed to “perpetuate the facts of history.” It was built in 1936, funded by Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. For years it was run as a private concession, but since 1967, it’s been a Rapid City park.

It wasn’t easy getting the Red Chair on top of the triceratops. I was originally planning on sitting in it, but once I was standing on its neck I realized how long the fall would be.

We climbed one of the rocks. I brought the Red Chair and placed it so I could take a photo with the Needles Eye, a slot in one of the rocks.

We discovered that the Needles were only about a mile from our lodge where we’d been staying all week. My wife and I went back the next day. We parked at an overlook, and a Gray Jay flew up to say hi.

I grabbed some almonds from the car because Gray Jays are very tame and can often be coaxed to eat from your hand. This one disappeared, but I also noticed a whole herd of Least Chipmunks. It took me about 10 seconds to get one to grab the nut.

The tunnel on the right is the tunnel in the earlier photo.