Wedding, Family, Born Free and South Dakota

To bring you up to date, my Niece's wedding came off without a hitch.  The rain quit and the sun came out just in time for the outdoor wedding.  I spent some time after that with my brothers and sisters before heading to Iowa for the Born Free homecoming at the factory in Humboldt, IA.  Everyone has a wonderful time there seeing the new Born Free innovations and meeting up with old friends. 

This is my favorite new Born Free on the Ford 550 chassis.  

Next I went to Box Elder, SD to see my home for the first time. I had a tour of the mail facility and was impressed at how efficiently they handle all the mail and packages.   While there I went to the Badlands  National Park, picked up my Senior Pass and took a 4 mile hike.  Here are some pictures I took along the way.

It was hot and dry there but there was incredible scenery everywhere I looked.  It was a very slow walk because I was constantly stopping to admire the flowers on the cactus and the rock formations every few minutes.   Here are some of the flowers.

The next day I went to what seemed like a very different world just by going to the other side of Rapid City. I went to the Black Hills National Forest visitor center and asked for a recommendation on a nice hike. I was told about several and choose to go on an out and back hike on the Deerfield trail.  This was a delightful hike along a small river with lots of trees.  Totally different than the day before!  I ended up going 7.33 miles according to my GPS. Here are some pictures from that hike.

How can that tree grow there?  I guess it takes seriously the saying "Grow where you are planted."

SO different from the Badlands.

After leaving the main river, the trail followed a small creek with bridges like this. After the third one and the trail requiring pushing through tall weeds I figured I had gone far enough. Got pretty good at crossing on those narrow bridges though!  A thoroughly enjoyable hike!

The next day it was stormy so I stayed home and decided to update this blog.