A Little Mom/Daughter Trip to Denver

  Just a quick Mom/Daughter trip with my sister and her daughter, too.  

Did a little painting, a little shopping, had some wine and relaxed.

This image of my niece, Karson, is probably the only picture I took with my D700. LOVE, love, love how it turned out!  I should have lugged it with me the entire trip.  Sigh...  Oh well.  My P330 did a fair job.

Below is the only other image I took with my D700.  

The BIG BLUE BEAR, peeking into the lobby of the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver. 

2nd Annual Road Trip Pt 3 - Southern Oregon/Coos Bay

2nd Annual Road Trip Pt 1 - Glass Beach/Fort Bragg California

After our road trip last year to Mt Rushmore and surrounding areas, 

my sister and I decided we wanted to take a road trip every year.  

This year we decided upon the 

Northern California/Southern Oregon coast.

It was so beautiful and we had a great time.

Let me say, a road trip of this type requires a lot of time in the car.  But we were prepared.  We packed a bunch of snacks (some even healthy, I might add), some books on 'tape' and headed out.

We started out from Utah and drove to Reno, NV for the first, long leg of the trip. 

Salt Flats

Our first stop in California.  Glass Beach!

I just love the ocean!

Snowstorm = scary drive

When we woke up there was 4 inches of snow on my car!  Not good.  But we could see some sunshine so we got everything together and headed out.  

Last thing we saw as we exited Casper Wy, was a van that had apparently slid off the road and rolled down an embankment.  Did not give either of us a warm fuzzy.  But we had to get home no matter what so we kept on going.  

For the next two hours I white-knuckled it through icy/snowy roads, snow blowing straight across the road causing white outs on occasion and semis blinding me as they passed me on the two-lane highway we were on.  It was pretty scary.  But once we were headed south it wasn't long before we got out of the worst of it and it was pretty smooth sailing from there.

(phone pic taken by my sister)

Deadwood

When we woke this morining, the sun was shining (we'd expected cloudy skies) but the temperature had dipped down quite a bit.  

We didn't let that stop us,tho'.  We checked out of the hotel and headed out to see what we could before heading home.

As I'd mentioned in a previous post, we were visiting during the off season.  That meant we didn't get to see the shoot out on the street, the tours and the re-enactment of Wild Bill being shot. :(  We were able to stop in and see The Gem Saloon, the actual location where Wild Bill HIckok was shot, visit the Adams Museum and the cemetery where Wild Bill, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock are buried.  

We weren't quite prepared for the cemetery tour, tho'.  The cemetery was HUGE and located in the hills overlooking the city of Deadwood.  It was very pretty, but quite steep.  Of course, we were dressed for spring.  lol  Which meant no coats and more importantly - no hiking shoes.
 

We found Wild Bill and Calamity Jane's burial sites fairly easily.

 But we had to really hike up the mountain to see Seth Bullock's grave site.   It was worth it even if only for the exercise we got.  lol  After all, we had decided to make our way back home that day and that meant sitting in the car for hours.  (I like to think of the positives :))

Once we'd seen everything we wanted to see we decided to head on out.  It was almost lunch time before we left Deadwood, so we decided to make it to Casper WY and stay the night.  We didn't relish driving till 10/11pm.

After we were settled into our hotel we decided to see a movie to kill time.  When we came out of the theater, it was SNOWING!!

We should have known...

Devil's Tower, Sturgis, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse & Deadwood!

First stop - Gillette, SD - where we spent the night.  It was getting dark when we arrived so we waited till the morning to head out to Devil's Tower.  It's pretty awesome to see in person...

(no 'close encounters', tho')

 
As we made our way up to Deadwood, we decided we might as well do a 'drive by' of Sturgis.  Not much going on at the time (of which we were kinda grateful for since both of us are very much NON motorcycle enthusiasts  lol), so it was pretty quiet.

Once we arrived in Deadwood, we checked in to the Bullock Hotel.  We hear Seth Bullock still walks the hallways...

After we checked in we decided we walked the town a little.  Since this was such an impromptu trip, turns out we went in the off season (off-off season, I'd say).  So it was really quiet as well.  Not a lot going on.  Some restaurants were even closed.

The weather was beautiful, tho, and the forecast for the following day was rainy and cold.  We decided to take advantage and headed on over to Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

Mt Rushmore was awesome!  I took so many pictures from all different angles.  I especially liked how they created 'catch lights' in the eyes.  So cool!!

We wanted to come back at night to see it when the lights come on but the weather decided to turn a bit early.  So we headed back to Deadwood for the night.

Road Trip!!

My sister and I are heading off on a road trip.  We originally hijacked my folks' trip to Tennessee to see our brother and his wife.  They live in England and are in Tennessee for their best friends' daughter's wedding.  Well, two days before we were to head out my dad came down with a case of shingles.  So, needless to say, the trip got cancelled.  

But my sister and I decided we'd embark on a little road trip ourselves.  After internet searching for a location we decided on Deadwood, SD.  Why Deadwood?  Besides being BIG fans of the HBO series, there is also Mt Rushmore, the Badlands and Devil's Tower.  All places we've never seen before.  So, we're pretty excited!

(Phone pics)

First the long drive through Wyoming..  A whole lotta nothing...  lol