Gone Fishin’

Just another open thread to tell everyone I’m still idling in South Dakota. This is a fine place for vacationing, particularly with young kids.

My buddy has a fishing boat, so a couple of days ago, we took the kids fishing. One of the great bare spots in my education is on the subject of fishing. So, my friend did a heroic job of trying to fill in some of the gaps. Basically, he had to teach me and both of my kids how to fish. Later on, the kids skipped the cleaning but I got to learn how to do it. To borrow a phrase from my buddy’s father-in-law, when I got done with the fish, it looked like the work had been done by a bear cub with boxing gloves. They fried up nicely, however.

On July 3, we went to the Mount Rushmore fireworks display. That was a great time, though the actual fireworks were obscured by a fog that set in around dusk. I even got interviewed by a local news affiliates trying to get a story about folks being disappointed about the display. I don’t think I made the cut, but I said that, sure, it would have been nicer to have a better view of the fireworks, but it didn’t really diminish from the reason we were out there – to celebrate our country with friends and family.

There was a lot of effort involved though! My buddy and I dropped off the wives, kids, and a lot of the gear at the entrance, then we found parking about 2.5 – 3 miles away and lugged a cooler and lawn chairs all the way back up hill. Then, at the end of the night, we had to carry the stuff back along with 2 kids sleeping in strollers and the 2 boys half-walking, half riding on shoulders back. This was Cole and Harper’s first fireworks display. Probably best we didn’t have a full view since that would be an awfully high bar to beat.

On the Fourth, we spent a lot of the day in downtown Rapid City looking at the statues of the Presidents:

Then we finished up the day with some low rent fireworks at home that the kids absolutely loved.

And yesterday, we took a hike around Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park then drove down to Wind Cave National Park and took a tour. Today, we’re taking it kind of easy — might get out fishing again — and then heading back toward Indiana tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to hit Wall Drug and the Corn Palace on the way back. The logistics of coming out didn’t really permit seeing them since we passed them in the dead of the night.

So far this has been a pretty phenomenal vacation. We owe a lot of that to our friends who have been hosting us for an extended period. Aside from all the great stuff we’ve done, the days have been book ended by great breakfasts and evenings spent on the deck drinking beer as the sun goes down — often under the guise of “tending to the smoker” as it smokes up some rainbow trout. Smoked trout and beer is a new favorite combination of mine.