Summer Fun

I hope everyone else has been having as much fun this summer as I have!

Of course my garden looks like crap but I have to admit the weeds have had a spectacular year.  It was soooo cold for soooo long this spring that the veggies  that actually sprouted are way behind.  I’m not sure if there will be anything at all except some herbs and a few green beans to harvest.  There are a few tomatoes on the vines but they are very green and with the cold nights I’m betting we will have a house full of green tomatoes this fall.

Since it is just plain depressing to go out into the garden I have been keeping busy with other stuff…  Some really fun stuff.

I have been working on my little camper – Rattlin’ Ruby and she is starting to look pretty darn spiffy.  We have the Custer County Fair this weekend, a Sisters on the Fly event in Buffalo WY next weekend and finally a car show to enter her in next month.

 In a moment of total and complete insanity I started polishing her silver aluminum hide.  Of course when I started this little project it was hot and dry but since then the skies have opened up and it rains just about every evening so my polishing has come to a screeching halt.  Only about a third of Ruby’s back-end is polished and about half of one side.  She looks a little goofy right now but that will not stop us from going to the fair.  We leave today and will carefully weave our way through the masses of motorcycles that are on the road this week for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  It should be fun!

This last few weeks have been filled with even more fun.  I know – it’s hard to believe it can get any better than polishing an old camper, right?  Ha!

The first thing we did was the Days of ’76 in Deadwood.  I have never been to the ‘Days’ and I have lived here a really, really long time.  I didn’t get very good photos but we had a blast!  Dalton and Dani were the ones who came up with this wonderful idea and so we jumped in the pickup and drove to Deadwood where we had a fantastic meal at the 4 Aces Casino – prime rib and crab legs.  My advice – forget the salad bar and head straight to the good stuff.  From there we walked (actually we waddled) down to the Rodeo grounds to the vendors who ended up with some of my hard-earned cash and the grandstands which are amazing on their own.  Built from huge logs it’s like a work of art you can sit in.  I’ll try to post some photos when I get back from the fair.

The 2nd fun thing I did was to go to a party at the Antler’s Bar & Grill which was hosted by the Newcastle Library.  You got to love a library which holds a get together at a bar!  This one was for Craig Johnson – the wonderfully talented author of the Longmire series of books which inspired the TV show – Longmire.

If you haven’t been watching Longmire on Monday nights you have been missing out!  The story is based on the sheriff – Walt Longmire who lives in the make-believe town of Durant, WY (which is patterned after Buffalo, WY).  Craig lives in Ucross which is a small town close to Buffalo.  The Buffalo Chamber of Commerce have celebrated Longmire Days for the past 3 years and I have wanted to go every single year.  I haven’t made it yet but I am definitely going next year.

Craig is traveling around the state of Wyoming and visiting all 73 Wyoming libraries to talk about his book The Spirit of Steamboat.  What a nice guy!  He is a wonderfully funny speaker and is so humbled by the amazing success of his books and the show.  Its obvious he loves Wyoming and the people who live there and has become something of a local hero although you would never know it to speak to him.  In fact the Libraries ‘pay’ him to come speak with a 6 or 12 pack of Rainer Beer – which is Sherriff Longmie’s favorite drink.  He says he hasn’t bought beer in 7 years!.  What a great sense of humor.

As you can tell I was very impressed and inspired by his talk.  I may just have to start writing murder mysteries too!  In my free time of course…  Dang, I’m funny!  I suggest you read his books (and the entire Britannica encyclopedia set) while you wait for my book to come out.  I believe the library also has Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD of the TV series.

The 3rd really fun thing I did last week was to join a few people from work who wanted to do a Mud Run.   This event was hosted by the Campbell County Mudders to raise money for the families of the 3 miners who were killed in a bus/car accident a couple of months ago.  It was for a good cause so I figured why not?  How bad could it be?  There were 5 members of our team – some of which actually like to run (go figure) and some of us who were built more for comfort than speed (myself included).

OK – I must admit most people who do these runs actually spend time training for them but since it was kind of a last-minute thing we had less than a week to prepare.  I trained by eating as much chocolate as possible and by running 2 laps around the house one evening.  It took me 2 days to recover from that.  Even with that extensive training, I was not prepared for what we ended up doing.   Silly me.  I imagined we would be jogging around the horse track at  Camplex with a few mud puddles to run through.

Lets just say it was a little more intense than that…

Turns out that this event was one that would be classified as an Extreme Mudder Run.  As I always say “Go Big or Go Home”.

That’s Beth, one of my team mates in the picture above.  She was in the first obstacle.  Who knew they would build obstacles in a race?  They had dug 2 holes in the track, piled the dirt up on each end of the holes and filled both holes with water.  And that was just the first of many ‘fun’ things to come.  The course was 5K (or 3.1 miles) and was run in 2 laps with 16 obstacles in each lap.  The 1st obstacle – pictured above – we had to do 3 times.

Can I just say one word?

BENTONITE! 

If you’ve never had any experience with this powdery grey mineral you might not realize what water does to it.  I on the other hand I have helped seal off stock tank leaks with the stuff and have learned all the fascinating properties of the stuff.  I have found that combining water and BENTONITE creates one of the slickest, gooiest, stick-to-your-body gunk you will ever run into.  And ‘run into it’ we did.

We ran through it, slid down it, swam through it, climbed up it and slithered on our bellies like a reptile in it.

As if the challenge of wet BENTONITE wasn’t enough there were also huge tires from large mine vehicles to climb over, a cable bridge stretched between two tow trucks to fall off of, barbed wire (one with electricity to zap you) to crawl under, culverts to crawl through, structures to climb over, large round hay bales to climb up and over, a large roll-off dumpster lined with plastic and filled with water you had to wade through and duck under wooden walls and a vast plethora of chances to break a hip on.  As I get older I find myself thinking about that stuff more often.

Thankfully, Beth’s daughter was there to take pictures of us as we worked our way through the course.  I figured I might need them for insurance purposes too.

Thank goodness for my fantastic team mates.  That’s Jonathan hauling my lazy *%$ through part of the course.  Actually that was one of the obstacles – to carry a team-mate for a distance.  We had to stay together as a team and surprisingly we did pretty good – less than 90 minutes to get through it all.  We even beat out a team of 21-year-old gals who had to ask another team of guys to help them along the way.  Of course that could have been their plan all along – if you get my drift.

Here’s our ‘after’ photo.

You can’t really see what a mess we were.  But they did direct us to the livestock wash racks before allowing us into the bathrooms if that gives you any indication of how we looked.  I’m still picking BENTONITE out of my belly button.

I have to admit I am rather proud of our team and even myself.   With a little help from my friends I was able to do every obstacle except one – climbing over a 15 foot wall with a knotted rope to pull yourself up with.  I’m going to have to work my way up to that one.  But all in all I didn’t do too bad for a 52-year-old woman who sits at a desk all day and eats massive amounts of chocolate.

Will I do it again?  I just might.  I must admit that when I hit that first obstacle my first thought was “What the hell did I get myself into?”  But completing each obstacle and crossing that finish line was a rush I haven’t felt for a long time.  Yep, I’ll do it again but next time I’ll train a little better – more chocolate and maybe 2 more laps around the house!!!

Now I’m off to have more fun!

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Tripping with Ruby

It has been a crazy summer – even though summer took her sweet time getting here.

Weather-wise it hasn’t been the best year for a garden which is kind of sad when I look into the greenhouse but since there aren’t any veggies to sell at the Farmers Market I have had some free time to do a few ‘fun things’ that I usually don’t have time for.

Like camping with Hubby!

Dani and Dalton (who are teachers and have the summer off) decided to come to the ranch for a couple of weeks.  Since they have grown into highly responsible adults Hubby and I decided this was the perfect opportunity for us to take off for a couple of days.  I hitched up Rattlin Ruby while Hubby threw in a change of clothes and Steve the Wonder Dog who doesn’t hesitate when he sees an open pickup door.

Hubby didn’t want to drive or even navigate so I just headed off in a generally north-westerly direction and we ended up here – Keyhole State Park near Pine Haven, WY.  What a nice place to camp and the weather was perfect – not too hot and we even got rained on which makes for good sleeping weather in an old camper.

We only spent one night at Keyhole but it was such a pretty night.

Steve travels really well.  He’s just the right size to fit into a little camper.  He especially likes watching out the door – guarding us against the evil squirrels who inhabit campgrounds.

The next day we drove a whooping 26 miles to our next stop.  You’ll never guess where we’re headed.

OK – you guessed.

We went to Devil’s Tower – our nation’s first National Monument and camped in the KOA campground where parts of the Steven Spielberg classic movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed.  How cool is that?

It was a beautiful campground with a great view no matter where you were parked.

And to prove it just look at the view outside Ruby’s back window.

And what a photo for her scrap book!

I had to laugh though – this was a huge campground filled with many large & very expensive motor homes and campers.  As my sister would say “It was a veritable plethora of gleaming and perfectly painted mansions on wheels”.  Steve and I walked up and down every row to check out all these beauties and when we returned to our humble little abode I told Hubby that there was ab-so-lutely no doubt in my mind that Ruby was the oldest girl at the ball (so to speak).  But even with this mass of “Trailer Perfection” parked in all their glory Ruby still seemed to get a lot of second looks.  What a Hoot!

We thought about hiking around the base of Devil’s Tower but we had done that years ago with the kids and since dogs are not allowed on the trail we would have had to leave Steve behind – which wouldn’t be right.  So we stayed at the campground and were basically lazy.  We didn’t even stay up for the free viewing of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind which they show every night throughout the summer – of course they do.  Just imagine the thrill of watching Richard Dreyfuss sculpt a replica of Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes with the real Tower looming just past the screen.  But for us it was early to bed and early to rise so we could go see something that Hubby has driven past many times but has never stopped to see.

Wah-La.  I give you the Vore Buffalo Jump!

Sitting right beside the interstate is an amazing thing that you really should stop and see if you get the chance.  Starting in the mid 1500’s this natural sink hole was used to kill large amounts of buffalo by the Native Americans.  They would slowly start to move the herds of buffalo toward the hole then stampede them at the last minute.  The buffalo in the front probably tried to stop when they saw the drop off but the animals behind them would have forced them over the edge.  The buffalo that weren’t killed by the fall would have been finished off by the hunters.  Then the work of butchering and preserving the meat for winter would begin.  It was a very interesting stop.

Originally the interstate was supposed to go right over the top of this area but when an engineer testing the sink hole to see if it was stable enough to support the road came back with core samples filled with bones they decided to do some investigating.  There are many Buffalo Jumps throughout the area – even one not far from our ranch but this is one of the better known ones.  This particular site was used for about 250 years until the introduction of the horse made this form of hunting obsolete.  Every summer they work to uncover more of the site and learn a little more.

When we finished the tour – and I bought a T-shirt – we stepped outside to see this in the parking lot.

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby…  You roll with the best of them.

(And no, that was not me spinning cookies in the parking lot.  LOL!!!)

Then it was off to Rapid City where we stopped at the Windmill Truck Stop to top off the gas tank before heading home.  As we waited in line for the pump a small gray car pulled up beside us and stopped.  Inside, an elderly man motioned for Hubby to roll down his window so he could tell us something.  I must admit, my first reaction was to look in the rear-view mirror to see if Ruby had scattered parts across the parking lot but to my relief the pavement was clear.  There was a glimmer of tears in the man’s eyes as he introduced us to his wife sitting in the seat beside him.  Although he didn’t say so, we could tell she wasn’t well and it appeared she wasn’t able to speak but she smiled as her husband explained they had seen us on the road and had followed us into the truck stop because he wanted to tell us that our little camper had made his wife laugh.  He must have seen our confusion as he continued to explained it was especially funny to his wife as her name was Ruby.  When she saw the name “Rattlin Ruby” plastered across the rear end of an old camper she couldn’t help but laugh.

He said it made her day…

With a shared laugh between strangers and a simple wave of his hand they drove away leaving Hubby and I laughing to ourselves and knowing that this would be the highlight of our whole trip.  I eased the pickup and trailer ahead to the pump wishing I could have told them that they had made our day too.

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Flying with the Sisters On The Fly

I did it!  I attended my very first Sisters On The Fly weekend.  What a nice bunch of ladies and they really do (as their motto says) “Have more fun than anyone”. 

Of Course Steve wanted to go with.

Sorry, Big Fella – no men, of any kind allowed.

I took my sweet little trailer, Ruby – or as she’s know now – Rattlin’ Ruby and we spent a couple of days at Stockade Lake campground in beautiful Custer State Park.  It was like a trip home since I had worked and lived in CSP for two years when I was fresh out of High School. 

 I had to wait till after work on Friday before I could head over there but with only 35 miles to go it didn’t take me long.  I had spent the previous weeks getting stuff ready. I told Hubby that I was ready to go since I had packed everything, including the kitchen sink!  Ruby is still pretty ‘rustic’ but nobody cared – their campers had started out ‘rustic’ too. 

And just look at them now…

Everywhere I looked there were cute little campers…

 

OK – got to get a canopy!!!  I got so many good ideas – it was wonderful!

And everyone was so eager to share.  I made it into almost every camper there.

I was in Vintage Camper Hog Heaven and loving every minute.

But the highlight of the trip for me was when this rolled into camp.

 This SWEET little pickup and camper are owned by a local fella I have known for years.  Since this is a very special little camper it’s owner, Jim, was asked to bring her by even though it meant breaking all the rules when it came to ‘ men in camp’. 

I have driven past this camper hundreds of times over the years and always wondered what she looked like inside.  I had even asked about buying it at one point but as soon as I saw inside I realized why it would never be for sale. 

 

Jim is an artist and an amazing person.  I had no idea just how artistic he is until I saw this. 

Check out all the metal egg beaters on the ceiling.  I bet there were at least 70 of them without the handles screwed up there. 

I was blown away!  I just had to sit down and look.  Every surface was filled with hood ornaments, trophy parts and bits and pieces of all manner of things.  There was so much that like me, my camera didn’t know what to focus on so I’m afraid the photos don’t do it justice.

This was my favorite part – doesn’t the bed look like a berth on an old ship – so tiny and cozy.  He said he had to add this wall because the sides of the trailer were pulling out.  So he copied the arch of the camper doorway and made a great little cubbie hole for the bed.  I might just have to steal that idea for one of my campers.  And another thing I’m definitely going to do is copy the way he built his screen door.

Is that beautiful or what?

Jim’s son and grandson were there too.  His son is working on another old trailer that I’m betting will be just as wonderful as this one.  What a nice bunch of guys.

I did have a great time last weekend and will have to do it again.  The SOTF gals will be getting together the end of this month when the people of central Nebraska have their annual ‘Junk Jaunt’.  This event is a 3 day, 300 mile long rummage, antique, vendor filled sale that makes a loop through some of the prettiest country in Nebraska.  I was really thinking about attending until I got home Sunday afternoon and learned we will be moving yearlings that weekend.  Oh well, that gives me a whole year to save my pennies for the next one.

Thank you to all my new sisters for all the fun and especially the wonderful warm welcome I received.  I look forward to seeing you all again!

 

 

 

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