Our summer in South Dakota, 2023

This is long overdue but it's been a busy 9 months. I had so many pictures to edit, it took awhile. After my dive trip to Egypt we spent some time in Golden, CO and then took a trip to Pocatello, ID to visit our long time friends, Jim and Tressa. We then headed north to our summer job in Hill City, SD. 

We’ve been to SD before, registered our vehicles, gotten our driver licenses and visited with my son, Jeremy. (He lives in Whitewood, between Deadwood and Sturgis). This year we wanted a change of scenery and settled on the Black Hills! Green pine trees, lots of lakes, rivers,  bison and lots of rolling hills and impressive rock formations. 

Hill City is the second oldest town in the Black Hills area and has lots of charm. (1876) After the gold rush died out, tin was the next big boom. After tin mining went bust, Hill City depended on the railroad to bring tourists and goods. It’s only about 15 minutes from Mount Rushmore and 45 minutes from Deadwood. There are lots of wineries and breweries in town. Believe it or not, we did not get to all of them.

Custer is 30 minutes south, with the Crazy Horse Memorial in between. It is the oldest city in South Dakota’s Black Hills. (1875) The building fronts look like an old Western town. Custer was established after Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry discovered gold in the Black Hills. Now, Custer is the central point for accessing Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and the Wind Cave and Jewel Cave National Monuments.  It boasts the oldest saloon in the Black Hills area, established during the gold rush. 

We worked at a small RV park, Black Elk Resort. On our time off we explored. Jim fished the reservoirs and streams, we drove Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Highway, lots of back roads and all through Custer State Park. Many of the recreation areas were built and developed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in the 30’s and 40’s. There is so much history here! 

My pictures tell the stories so here are links to the Google albums so you can enjoy last summer right along with us.

Iron Mountain Highway

Flag Mountain 

Castle Creek 4X4 road

Jewel Cave  

Exploring Custer, SD

Fishing in the Black Hills

Castle Creek at Deerfield Reservoir 

Wildlife Loop, Custer State Park 

Needles Highway 

Badlands National Park

Lakota history from Deadwood's museums

Deadwood history from the museums 

Pictures of Black Elk Resort

Wonderland Cave 

Spearfish Canyon 

Hill City scenes 

A fun day in Deadwood, Labor Day weekend 

Antiquing and exploring 

Grace Coolidge Trail, Custer State Park 

Hill City. Labor Day weekend

We were truly blessed to meet Aaron, the owner of Sawtooth RV Campground and Cabins while we were in Hill City. Next summer we will be managing his RV Park and will have the opportunity to visit all the places we did not get to last summer, LoL. Sawtooth RV Park

My Egyptian Adventure-the last days

Our last day in Sharm was a wonderful laid back day of shopping and a "Cleopatra Massage" in the spa at the resort.  After the diving and climbing in and out of the pyramids, I really needed it! We topped off the day with an ATV safari. We were driven out into the desert where we each rode an ATV farther out into the desert. There were 100's of ATVs and many were in questionable condition. The fenders were held together with duct tape and screws, throttles were really stiff or really loose and brakes were iffy. Sometimes they would just stop running. It was quite a contrast between 3rd world adaptations with US equipment. And lots and lots of fun! We had a blast! 

We rode to a bedouin camp where we had tea and got to bake fresh bread over an open fire. It looked like a big flour tortilla but baked to a wonderful chewy texture. Afterwards we rode camels and then mounted our ATVs to go farther into the desert. We went to a compound where we had dinner buffet style, sitting on cushions. Xime and I smoked a hookah and were treated to native dances and a whirling dervish. It was all lit up with colored lights with a big stage. A little surreal. Once most of the other people had departed, we got to stargaze with 3 telescopes. As you can imagine, it was very, very dark out there. There were no clouds so it was a perfect night. Then we rode back in the dark. Quite a thrill ride! (Pictures of our desert safari)

May 17th we flew back to Cairo and everyone went their separate ways, for the most part. Marleea (a friend I met on the trip) and I decided to go see the Pyramids and Sphinx lit up at night. Co travelers, Jeff and Paul were staying at a charming boutique hotel right next to the pyramids so we went there to enjoy the sunset and decadent fruit drinks. It was beautiful and a vey different perspective on the Pyramids. Afterwards we went to dinner in the Cairo Tower (Information on the Cairo Tower) The tower is the most remarkable contemporary monument in Egypt and is a vivid contrast to the Pyramids. It is located on Zamalek, an island in the middle of the Nile. The restaurant is on the top of the tower at almost 525 ft and revolves to see a 360' panorama of Cairo and Giza. It also has a outdoor platform for truly incredible views. (Pictures of my last day in Egypt)

My flight for Heathrow departed at 7am so it was a short night! I have to tell you, if you think security is bad in the US, go through it in the Cairo airport. Women and men are in separate lines and you get a pat down search at each checkpoint, of which there are many! I finally got to my departure area and got some real coffee, not Nescafe. Yea! Once we were airborne we were able to see the Pyramids from the air. So cool! Check out the pictures. (Cairo from the air). My flight home was 11 hours, from Cairo to Denver vs 30 hours from Denver to Cairo. Crazy. Some of our group were going on to Jordon to dive and they shared some pictures too. 

I was glad to get home but really sad for my travels to end. It truly was a trip of a lifetime! 

I hope you enjoy the story.

My Egyptian Adventure - Diving the Red Sea

Sharm-El-Sheikh is right on the Red Sea on the lower end of the Sinai. Information on Sharm. We dove with Reef Oasis Dive Club. Our Dive Masters, Ahmed and Hossam were great and our dive boat was amazing. It was huge boat, especially for just 13 of us. The whole back deck was set up for "wet" with a "dry" salon for meals and relaxing. There were 2 heads and they were almost bigger than the bathroom in my RV! The upper deck had cushions and was partially covered. Absolutely pristine.  If you've ever been on a boat for diving or fishing you can appreciate this.  After our dives we had lunch on board. Quite the spread every day! Really good food. (Pictures of the dive boat and views. Dive site maps and fish ID charts). We did shore dives at the Temple and Far Garden as check out dives the 1st day. On May 13th, we dove Jackson and Gordon reef from the boat. On the 14th, we dove Shark Reef and the Dunraven wreck. We also did a night dive at Far Garden. On the 15th we drove to Dahab (Information on Dahab) and dove at the Blue Hole (History of the Blue Hole) and the Canyon. (Pictures of the trip to Dahab) We returned to town and had a wonderful lunch right on the sea and went shopping in a charming street bazaar. Such fun!

Every dive, everyday, was incredible and a unique experience! (Pictures of lots and lots of fish)

My Egyptian Adventure, Part 2 Sharm-El-Sheikh

 After 3 busy, incredible days in Cairo, we flew to Sharm-El-Sheikh on the Red Sea on the Sanai Peninsula.  It was quite a difference from Cairo! It is a resort town that became a popular destination  after 1982, so it is only about 50 years old. Most of the buildings are white with colors and lots of flowering plants so it is much more colorful than Cairo. We stayed at the Safir Resort (Pictures of Safir Resort). It was beautiful, right on the beach. We were on  the ground level, next to the pool. There aren't elevators, only a 6 person tram that ran up and down the incline of 4 more levels (funicular). It was an all-inclusive hotel (no alcohol was included as it is a Muslim country; but you could go to the bar and buy it) The buffets were quite amazing. The assortment of pastries in the morning were incredible. Also the coffee is from a Nescafe machine with many choices. Raw veggies and some lettuces were plentiful for every meal but no salad dressing. Or oil and vinegar. A whole table of yogurts, honey also meats and cheeses (no pork) Lots of mystery foods, LOL. 

The 1st night we were in Sharm we went to a "nightclub" that Engin found. What an amazing place! It was called Farsha (Pictures of Farsha Nightclub). You walked down many flights of stairs and sat on cushions. Lots of hookahs, people and cats. Then you walk back up the stairs! 

We went downtown several times to shop and sightsee. We went to Elmasrien restaurant and had dinner 1 night. We ordered the sampler dinner- so much food. The mosque is so, so beautiful. It takes your breath away. It is so tall, its hard to get the whole building in the frame. it is lit up at night as are all the shops. So many colors! (Pictures of Sharm-El- Sheikh, downtown)

My Egyptian Adventure - May 2023

 (FYI. Many of the pictures have captions that you can read if you click on the picture. Also play the videos, they are fun!)

When we were diving with our dive shop in Cozumel in Oct we found out about a dive trip they were organizing to go dive the Red Sea in May of 2023. We were all in! It's a trip of a lifetime; 3 days in Cairo and 6 days in Sharm-El-Sheik with 4 days of diving in the Red Sea. After our experience in Mazatlan, Jim felt that the long plane trip and all the travel would be too stressful, so he opted not to go. I had to do a lot of soul searching but I decided to go with the group. Visiting Egypt has always been a dream and it did not disappoint!

On May 6th, after attending our granddaughter Kalyn's college graduation from the Business school at the University of Northern Colorado, I flew to London on British Airways. The flight was great, overnight to Heathrow, with 2 meals and free drinks. Quite a nice change from domestic flights. You barely get peanuts and sodas even flying to Mexico or the Caribbean. I got into Heathrow mid morning and I have to say, it was the strangest experience. When you have a connecting flight you don't go thru immigration or customs. You just scan your boarding pass multiple times and walk down miles of corridors to the departure area. This was a huge warehouse structure filled with hundreds (maybe thousands) of passengers and lined with endless high end retail stores and duty free shops. I'm surprised I didn't see a Maserati store! Very few restaurants or coffee venders. They did have a caviar and champagne bistro though. I found a pub and had a GREAT beer and settled down to wait. They don't announce your gate until an hour prior to departure. Of course my flight was delayed and I didn't get into Cairo until 1 am Monday morning. Overall my flight took 30 hours! (Pictures of Heathrow)

Cairo never sleeps. There was a lot of traffic and so many stores and restaurants open, even at that hour. Lots of lights and neon. I met up with Engin and Xime (pronounced Seme) for coffee and chocolate cake for breakfast at 2 pm. The group gradually assembled and I got to meet everyone. There were 13 of us all together. I needed to get Egyptian pounds at the bank across the street from our hotel. To do this I had to get help from the busboy at the hotel. This is because traffic never stops! There are no stoplights or crosswalks or lane markings. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger. I just held on to the bellboy's arm and prayed. Unfortunately, you have a repeat performance when you go back across! It was a terrifying experience.  

We went out to dinner at a Shawarma restaurant. It was our first experience with ordering unknown foods in an unknown language. The menu was in Arabic. We translated with Google lens and it sort of worked. One waitress spoke some English and we pretty much got what we ordered, LOL. A very interesting view from the restaurant was a group of stores across the street. There were 3-4 blocks of 2 story shops selling formals and bridal gowns, all right next each other, all lit up, all selling very similar dresses. It was a spectacular display. (Pictures of Cairo day 1)

There are an amazing variety of vehicles in Cairo, from horse drawn carts to the most decrepit VW buses; rusted, dented, missing parts, overloaded with riders! After they die they come to Cairo to be resurrected. And lots and lots and lots of scooters. We came to joke about the "music" of Cairo; horn honking.....all the time, everywhere. (Pictures of Cairo street scenes)

Tuesday we met up with our guide and drove to Giza across the Nile to visit the Saqqara Necropolis. There are over 11 pyramids/tombs including the Step Pyramid of Djoser, the 1st pyramid built in Egypt, built by Imhotep, one of the 1st architects in history. It was built around 2630 BCE. We were able to go into another one of the other pyramids, the Pharoah Teti. The entrance is a long steep stone hallway, with wood rungs across the floor to keep you from sliding down. It's also only about 4 1/2 feet tall so you have to crouch down while descending. Beautiful carvings and hieroglyphs on the walls. The paint on the carvings is the original paint, over 4000 years old! (Pictures of Teti's tomb)

Then we went to the Giza pyramid complex, with the Great Pyramid, King Khufu's, being the tallest. (481 feet). It's the oldest and last remaining of the original 7 world wonders.  The other pyramid is for his son King Khafre and the 3rd is for the grandson King Menkaure. They were built in the 4th dynasty, circa 2550 BC. We were able to go into the pyramid of Khafre. It still has part of the limestone cap at the top of the pyramid. Then we went to see the Sphinx. It was an amazing day and an incredible adventure! (Pictures of Khafre's Pyramid).

Tuesday night we took a Nile River dinner cruise complete with a belly dancer, lots more boobs than belly, and a whirling dervish. Everyone got into the dancing and the videos are great! (Pictures of the Nile Cruise)

Wednesday we started at the Cairo Museum. It's old and in disrepair in places but so, so incredible. They are building a new museum and most of King Tut's treasures have been moved there but it was still overwhelming and amazing. My pictures don't do it justice. (Pictures of the Cairo Museum).

Our next stop was an essential oils factory and then a papyrus museum. (Pictures of Cairo tour). After lunch we visited 2 ancient churches, The Hanging Church and the Cavern Church, where the Holy Family found refuge when they fled the Holy Land for Egypt during Herod's reign. The icons are so beautiful and so old. (Pictures of the churches.)

We finished off the day by visiting the Khan El Khalily bazaar. What an experience! (Pictures of the bazaar)

On Thursday we flew to Sharm El Sheik on the Red Sea. When we got to the terminal in Cairo we were reminded again that everyone smokes, everywhere. There was an actual smoking room in the departure area! The only problem was, they kept the door open so the smell went all over.  (Pictures of our hotel in Cairo). 

Next Blog: Sharm El Sheik

 August 18, 2023

I can't believe it's been over a year since our last blog! 

The winter of 2022 we spent in Arizona, in Black Canyon City. We met new friends and had some great trail rides. The most amazing discovery was "Crested Saguaros" Pictures of Crested Saguaros. We also took Randy and Val to Crown King for the first time. On the way back we had to stop at the "Yacht Club" in Cleator. Population 8, Dogs 5, Grumpy cats 2. Check out the bathroom signs. They're great!  Pictures of Crown King and Cleator

We headed for Colorado in April and  had snow in Cotopaxi at Jim and Amy's. We spent the summer working at Lake John, close to Walden, CO. This was our 4th summer there. We decided that next summer, 2023, we would go to South Dakota. We really wanted to be closer to our son Jeremy. Pictures of Lake John It was a very busy summer but we still managed to find time to go to some high mountain lakes with our friends Howard and Dannette. Jim and Howard also spent lots of time fishing on the lake and at Delaney Buttes. Pictures of Wildflowers and high mountain lakes

In October we started heading south. We spent a few days in Red River, NM at Jim's sister Judy's house. The colors were amazing. Pictures of Fall colors

We always go to Taos one day and explore. This year we went to the "Mabel Dodge Luhan" house. She was a very important part of Taos art colony in the 1920s. Here is a link to a short article about this fascinating woman.  (Mabel Dodge Luhan) Dennis Hopper bought the house in 1970, after Mabel's death.  Among the more notable guests were musicians Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Bo Diddley, actors Jack Nicholson, Anthony Quinn and John Wayne, beat poet Alan Watts, and politicians George McGovern. Here's a link to a short article about his time there. Dennis Hopper's life in Taos.  A trip to Taos isn't complete until you've gone to Arroyo Seco to visit the artisan shops and The Taos Cow, amazing ice cream next to the river. So fun. Pictures of Taos and Arroyo Seco 

After getting settled at Rivers Edge RV park in Black Canyon City, we flew off for 2 weeks in Cozumel. We stayed in a great little boutique hotel, Caribo Cozumel. Great prices and SO nice. We were 2 blocks from the grocery store and our favorite taco restaurant, El Pique. Pictures of Cozumel

We dove with Engin and Xime again. Amazing dives as usual. We always see something different. The pictures Engin takes with his GoPro are the best. These pictures are in no particular order and the videos are great. There are 2 amazing videos of octopus. Pictures of Cozumel diving 2022

We got back just in time to say hi to the grandkids and head back to Golden for Thanksgiving. We stopped for the night in Raton, NM and stayed at the Raton Pass Motor Inn. It's a restored roadside motel that was on the original highway before I25 was built. Each room is decorated by theme and has a name. We stayed in "Man's best Friend but others are Santa Fe Trail, Bettie's Boudoir, Butch and Sundance, Field and Stream or Big Texas to name a few. and the lobby is all vintage cool. Check out the 8 track stereo! Pictures of Raton Pass Motor Inn

One of the really fun things about Rivers Edge is that Joyce, the owner, schedules a "Ladies Day Out" once a month. December's trip was a day in Jerome, complete with lunch at the Jerome Bordello, shopping and wine tastings! We finished off the day with a trip on the Christmas train out of Cottonwood. Lights, elves, adult beverages and Santa. So fun! Pictures of Jerome

Christmas day we flew to Mazatlan for 2 weeks. It was the final year on my parent's timeshare there. We've always traded the week for a dive trip but this year we decided to spend New Years on the beach. Our friend Paris came with us and we had a great time eating street tacos, drinking beer and margaritas at the pool and shopping. The fireworks on New Years Eve were fantastic. Pictures of Mazatlan However, there was a dark side. Travel outside the hotel district was not recommended so we did no sightseeing or exploring. (There was a "Do Not Travel" advisory to Mazatlan due to crime and kidnapping. We didn't see it before we left.)  On Jan 5 Ovidio Guzman, son of "El Chapo" was arrested in Culiacan. Violence broke out and planes were fired on at the Culiacan Airport. Mazatlan is close to Culiacan so buses and taxis stopped running and they closed the airport. For 2 days there was a lot of fighting and burning. The hotel advised us to stay in the hotel. Of course our flight was cancelled and we weren't able to rebook it for 6 days. So we wound up staying for 3 weeks instead of 2. Believe it or not, we got a little tired of  beer, tequila, sea and sand. The vibe was just a little weird. 

The winter in Arizona was cold and wet. Lots of snow in the mountains. We didn't go jeeping until March. Our friends Wendy and John and their friends Andy and Candy came and stayed for a month and we had a blast.  We took a great trip to Crown king and Cleator. The wildflowers, especially the poppies, were incredible. We stopped at the Crown King saloon, the oldest bar and brothel in Arizona but they were closed. But we had a great lunch at the cafe next door and had fun reading all their signs.  We started to go all the way to Prescott on the Senator Highway but the road was almost impassable due to high water crossing the road and rocks. (This was a 37 mile toll road that was built in 1866 to the Senator Mine and then on to Crown King, named for the Crown King mine) Pictures of the Drive to Crown KIng

We love it at Rivers Edge. As the name implies the RV park is located on the banks of the Aqua Fria River. Normally this is a huge dry wash . However, this spring with the constant rain and snow melt the river bed filled up to the banks, ready to overflow and flood the campground, with the possibility of a flash flood from further  upstream. Some of the low laying spaces in the park already had water in them when we packed up and moved to higher ground for the night. When we got back the next morning the flood waters had receded by half and the river was down to a trickle in a couple of days!  It's amazing how fast the water can change in the desert. Pictures of Rivers Edge RV Park

In April we headed north to Colorado for doctor appointments and to get Becky ready for a big dive trip to of all places.....Egypt and the Red Sea! That's the next blog. 

 It’s been a long time since we’ve sent out a blog update. A lot has gone on in the last year or so and we wanted to update everyone. We’ve been spending our winters in Black Canyon City, AZ; just north of Phoenix. It’s wonderful to be able to spend time with our family there; son Joe and his kids Judah and Daisey and daughter Melanie & Travis and their boys Jack & Harvey. Daughter Avey is in Sacramento with granddaughter, Elena. Unfortunately we don’t get out there very often to see them but it’s a lot easier to fly them to see us.Elena is 7 and loves to fly! 

Our summer job has been in Colorado so we get to see our daughter Alisha & her husband Billy and their girls, Kalyn & Allie in Golden. Daughter Karen and her kids, Holden & Bella live in western Kansas so we get there occasionally. 

Last summer was our 3rd year working at Lake John outside of Walden, CO. It’s just south of the Wyoming border and is an amazing place for fishing and wildlife. Jim is in heaven there. Besides fishing we have summer snows, pelicans, amazing sunrises, rainbows, mountain drives, wildflowers, balloons, antelope the size of deer and amazing fall colors.  (PIX OF LAKE JOHN AND AREA)  We’re going back next summer. (Lakejohnresort.com) 

Our reward for all our hard work this summer was to spend a month in Cozumel, Mexico.  Our introduction to traveling with the consequences of Covid was to stand in line with HUNDREDS of other people at the Southwest Airlines counter in Denver at 3:30 in the morning to checkin for our flight at 6 am! Usually the airport is a ghost town at that time of the morning. Not for us! Unbelievable. We finally got to our gate 20 minutes before they started boarding. Very stressful start to our  vacation but the rest of the trip was great. 

We stayed in 2 different hotels on Cozumel, El Cid and the Coral Princess. Both were gorgeous and had great food and beaches. Cozumel has one of the lowest Covid rates in the world so we felt very safe. Masks were required everywhere and they took your temperature before entry into any store or restaurant. (Pictures of our hotels and scenes in Cozumel). The food everywhere was amazing. We especially enjoyed the street tacos. Casa Mission was our favorite fancy restaurant and La Perlita is the best for seafood. You can usually get Lionfish there. (Pictures of our favorites)

We managed to find time to dive in between eating and laying around! We dove with friends we met 5 years ago. They now have their own dive shop, Cozumel Diving Trip (cozumeldiving.com.mx) Engin and Xime are the best to dive with. They only take 2-4 divers at a time and you are catered to! Engin has a great GoPro and takes pictures for you and finds the best stuff! Those of you who have dove with a crowd can appreciate this. (Diving Pictures). On our last dive we saw nurse sharks swimming, 2 lobsters out on a rock shelf fighting and a huge free swimming green eel. Engin DID NOT have his camera…….. Go figure. 

Our other big adventure was a tour to Chichen Itza. This is a beautifully excavated and preserved Mayan ruin complete with temples, sacrificial platforms and ball court. Amazing place and history lesson. (https://www.britannica.com/video/179586/Overview-Chichen-Itza-Yucatan-Mexico)

Our guide was Mayan and was very informative and entertaining. We met up with my cousin, Sarah. She’s a teacher in Merida, about an hour away. We had a great visit, especially over beers at the cenote where we stopped (Pictures of Chichen Itza and cenote). 

We passed our re-entry Covid test, thank goodness, and had an uneventful flight back to the States. We took a small detour to Athens, GA to visit my Aunt Jean and my cousins. Aunt Jean is the oldest member of our family and we’re working on our family pictures and history. I have a picture of my great, great grandmother on both sides. So cool!

After we got back to Golden,  granddaughter Allie and I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra in concert. What an incredible show! Our Allie is quite the artist. Her painting won an award and now is entered into a state wide competition. (TSO and Christmas) After that we went to Durango to see friends. Jim fulfilled a fishing bucket list item by float fishing on the San Juan River, not once but 4 times. Our friend Randy is an awesome guide and Jim upped his game a lot. Caught a bunch of fish, too. (Durango) Then we took the motorhome down to Black Canyon City. 3 weeks later we drove the jeep back to Golden for Christmas. It was a wonderful visit with family and friends. 

Now that we’ve caught you up on the year, here's wishing you a Happy New Year. Please keep in touch and we promise to do so also. 

Hugs

Jim and Becky

Sadie and Yaqui