1200 Miles West

Note from Mom today:

You got mail here yesterday from: United States Marine Corps, Inspector-Instructor, Engineer Support Company, Battle Creek, MI. To: Interested Officers. Subject: Command Opportunities in Battle Creek, Michigan. They are looking for a few good Company Grade Officers. There is currently an “officer Affiliation Bonus available for qualified Officers. “My intent in mailing this letter is not necessarily to sell or recruit you in the SMCR, it is simply to inform you of the need for your services and the opportunity to meet this need in the capacity of a Commanding Officer.”

Good to know if this flash in the pan technology thing doesn’t work out that I might have another future in the USMC.

Things must be getting desperate if they are looking for fat, old guys.

It’s time for bed, but I will continue updating the blog with pics and stories from Michigan in the next day or two. 

Stay tuned…

Received this in an email today:

Congratulations! You have been accepted into the Master of Business Administration at the Business School, University of Colorado at Denver, Graduate Programs, for the Fall 2008 semester.

Should be fun.

How many of you can say you have been to the highest point in South Dakota? Thought so, no too many. During our trip to South Dakota we were able to get out and enjoy our first hike of the year. I like my walks in the woods to be challenging so I chose a hike up Harney Peak in South Dakota to make sure our hearts would at least pump a little.

The Black Hills of South Dakota are very scenic with interesting rock formations, beautiful pine trees, and a nice green plushness as compared to Colorado.

One of the neat things along the hike were the Cathedral Spires. Yes those are people on top of those rocks. Fools.

We started at about 6000 feet (we live at 5400 in Colorado) and hiked up to the peak at 7242 feet. With the ups downs on the trip though, my GPS says we gained almost 2000 feet of elevation overall. The view from the top was spectacular and supposedly you could see five states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Montana. On the day we were there though, someone forgot to turn on the dotted lines so you could pick out the state borders.

There is a lookout tower on the summit that the Forest Service manned until 1967 to keep watch for forest fires.

Here we are, the happy couple, on the peak. I must say that Erin hardly complained at all during the seven mile round trip. Yes, my shirt is a nice bright orange and doubles as a safety signal in an emergency.

We had a great time during our hike and I look forward to the thirteeners and fourteeners we’ll summit this summer.

Mountain goats and white tailed deer, oh my!

We snapped this picture driving down the road. What’s surprising is that these guys weren’t even phased by the cars that were driving by.

Hiking in Custer State Park we rounded the corner to find two white tail deer grabbing an afternoon snack.

I was the driving force behind us heading to South Dakota over the long weekend as I wanted to see Mount Rushmore. I had heard stories of it’s gander and majesty, but growing up in the Midwest, a trip to the Black Hills on a Summer vacation was not high on the list.

As we headed up the hill coming out of Keystone, SD here was my first exposure to the great masterpiece:

Even from the car at this distance, I could already appreciate the hard work and dedication that went into building this monument.

Mount Rushmore is a memorial that symbolizes America, and Americans should never lose sight of their cultural beginnings. -Gerard Baker, Superintendent.

It was fitting that we spent Memorial Day visiting one of the greatest monuments in American History. I won’t bore you with all the details of who built it, why it was built, or how long it tool to construct, but if you have the chance I would strongly suggest that you take time out of your busy schedule to visit this piece of our history that we can all be proud of.

For those of you who are interested, here are some facts that I pulled off of the nps.gov site that I found interesting.

Did You Know?
There were approximately 400 workers that worked at Mount Rushmore during the carving process from October 1927 to October 1941. Also throughout this extremely dangerous work there were no lives lost.

Did you know that the figure of Thomas Jefferson was started on Washington’s right? after 18 months of carving the figure of Jefferson had to be dynamited off the mountain and restarted on the left of Washington.

Mount Rushmore is named after a New York City Attorney? Charles E. Rushmore was sent out to this area in 1884 to check legal titles on properties. On his way back to Pine Camp he asked Bill Challis the name of this mountain. Bill replied, “Never had a name but from now on we’ll call it Rushmore.”

Over 90% of Mount Rushmore was carved by using dynamite. Dynamite blasts removed approximately 450,000 tons of rock from the mountain.

That there is a cave in the mountain behind the heads on Mount Rushmore? It is called the Hall of Records. Gutzon Borglum and his workers started the drilling in July of 1938 and work was halted in July of 1939.

Still new to the State of Colorado, we decided to venture out during our first three-day weekend of 2008 and check out the Black Hills of South Dakota, so on Saturday morning we jumped into the car and headed North.

The farthest North I had been was Fort Collins, so as we ventured into the outskirt of Wyoming I was excited. I’m not sure why I was excited, especially seeing as a majority of the drive (3+ hours) looked just like this ————>

I’m not saying that it’s not beautiful country up there, but if you don’t stop and get gas or use the bathroom when they advertise the option, you may be out of luck.

Mike had done some research ahead of time, so we knew where we were staying and approximately how long it would take us to get there. Thank goodness for the GPS!

After about 4.5 hours in the car we hit South Dakota and the Black Hills. We wound through the hills (I can call them that as I live in CO where we have REAL mountains) and finally arrived in Deadwood, SD. It was like stepping back in time as Main Street looked as it may have over 100 years ago.

The town is the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickock who was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall while playing poker at the No. 10 Saloon on Aug 2, 1876.

The introduction of gaming has enabled Deadwood to preserve its historic buildings and dramatically increase tourism. The lure of gaming is not the only draw to Deadwood; people are also fascinated by its unique, colorful history.

We definitely enjoyed our time in Deadwood and would highly recommend it to anyone. We contributed to the economy, although I would have liked to walk away with one of the jackpots. Maybe next time!

I can’t say that things have been too chaotic or that I haven’t had time to blog, I just haven’t.  No excuses!

Today we returned from South Dakota where we spent time hiking in the Black Hills, visiting Mt. Rushmore and gambling in Deadwood.  Took over 50 pictures during the trip, so stay tuned as I will post updates this week.  I promise.

Had my tank actually been empty, I think I would have spent at least $60 to fill it up!  When I bought my Jeep five years ago, I could fill it up for between $25 and $30 bucks…where did those days go?

It all started last night…sometime during the evening hours we got a note from Sara letting us know that she was going to be taking Mike and I to an upcoming Rockies game to celebrate his birthday. In her note she said the following:

Happy birthday, Mike! In celebration of your birthday I have 3 tickets to the Rockies game next Wednesday night at 6:35pm. I have no idea who the Rox are playing but I do know I’ll be treating you to all the beer you can drink.

And by all the beer you can drink I mean 1 beer.

After thanking Sara for her thoughtfulness, Mike decided that he was going to ventured out to the local Game Stop to pick up his reserved copy of the new Grand Theft Auto IV. Oh, and did I mention that the game wasn’t available until midnight? That’s right, while I was fast asleep Mike picked up and proceeded to come home and play his new game for two hours. He was lucky to be out of bed when my parents called at 6:30am MT to wish him a happy birthday!

Once we got to work, Mike was surprised by a Thomas the Train helium balloon (which thankfully didn’t cause any traffic issues for Sara!) that was tied to his monitor and a post on the Indigio blog wishing him a happy birthday.

Later in the day a FedEx ground box showed up with gifts from Michigan. Inside were two golf shirts, two pairs of shorts, a Tigers t-shirt, a U of M t-shirt, a wine opener, a U of M license plate holder and this sweatshirt which Mike will be wearing to the hockey game tonight.

We’re off to see the the Red Wings play the Avalanche tonight. Hopefully we don’t get beat up!

Dale was ran out and picked up a fabulous cake to help the team here at Indigio celebrate. I’m not sure what kind of cake it was, but it was good!

I should also mention that Mike received Home Depot gift cards from his Mom and Jim, his Dad and Claudia and even Grandma Kelsey. I’m not exactly sure what he bought with them, but yesterday he showed me a drill with a light on it, so I guess that was the latest and greatest option.

I can’t speak for Mike, but I think he would agree that he is lucky to have friends and family that love him!