June 7th The DC Booth Historical Fish Hatchery and Archives

Had trouble finding this, bad gps directions, but we did find it-  Didn't have a blue goose stamp either, but got a pin-  very nice historical venue-  we fed the trouts here too~!

June 7th Twisted Throttle Saloon, Sturgis, South Dakota

This was a stop for Cooper- it seems that this place has it's own reality tv show-  

We spent about a half hour- he bought a t shirt for his dad, and I got a pin and a couple of do rags for a Coquina buddy 

Scenes from busier times 

Sculpture in front of the building 

Not very busy on a Sunday morning 

"Out back "on the stage 

Cooper with Emmett the miniature donkey 

One of the many bars in the place

June 7th Baggage found, so trip is as scheduled- Sturgis, Spearfish, Devil's Tower, Sheridan Wyoming

Fortunately, the luggage was found, so we slept in a bit, and did breakfast at the hotel at 0830- then pretty much in order:

To Sturgis SD for a stop at the Full Throttle Saloon  

Then to Spearfish SD for a stop at the DC Booth Fish Hatchery 

Then to Devil's Tower National Monument 

Then, in a slight change of plans, direct to our hotel for the night, the Quality Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming 

Garmin says:

Total miles for the day:  285

Max speed:  89  You see, the speed limit on I-90 around here is 80- and down a hill, with wind

Moving average 60 mph
Overall average 54 mph 
Total travel time 5:19
Total moving time 4:44  

June 6th Almost the trip from Hell day

Where to start:

Went to bed early, around 9 or so, to be awakened at noon by Cooper and Tina rustling around, because I was snoring, she had to go out and get him some earplugs.  I had trouble getting back to sleep, and dozed on and off for the rest of the night, finally getting up around 0410-   showered, then we got over to GSP  so far so good 

The hotel

Overhead of GSP

0620 take off!

Airport take off weather

We got into DFW pretty much on time, a rare for us, our take off gate was only 4 gates down from our arrival gate.  We were actually delayed about 20 minutes taking off from DFW-  they explained it as "waiting for baggage"- that turned out to be not entirely correct-   as it turns out, our luggage was missing when we arrived in Rapid City-   according to the gate agent there, they "had a weight and balance problem with the plane and arbitrarily removed some luggage- 

Overhead of the DFW airport- 

Our plane waiting to take off, without it turns out, our luggage

Take off weather at DFW

We spent a pretty frustrating day in Rapid City, trying vainly to get information about the bags, where they were, when they would arrive, etc.  The baggage agent had a bit of an attitude, primarily because of another person who was giving him one-  He handed me a paper with a phone number and a web address with a secret code number to follow up with.   I called/entered several times throughout the day, and was told everytime that the luggage was still lost-  

Finally at 6 pm, Cooper and I went back to the airport to check, and we got a hold of an Allegant Air baggage dude who was able to tell me that the luggage was found, and that it was scanned to arrive on the 820 pm plane- and it did-  The fellow delivered it to our hotel room about 915 that night-  

We decided to go ahead and head to Mt Rushmore even though the weather was not looking good-  It wound up thunder storming and raining cats and dogs-  but I got stamps-  we blew off our other plans for the day, which was to go by Crazy Horse memorial and Custer state park 

Overhead of Rapid City Airport  

Airport View  

Indoor Pool view of our hotel-  Cooper did the slide about 30 times!

Mt Rushmore before the sculpting:

Mt. Rushmore in the Driving rain-  ugh