25 August 2017 – Sunny and highs in the upper 70s

My cousin Keith and his wife Cindy came to visit last week, all the way from Boerne, Texas.  By now, all you Hoten Holler Follerers know the standard tourist itinerary:  Custer State Park, Iron Mountain Road, Mount Rushmore and down the Needles Highway.

Buffalo in Custer State Park
Obligatory Rushmore Pic
A beautiful day at Sylvan Lake
A little mountain climbing on the Needles Highway

On Monday, we participated in the cattle round-up and moved Cowboy Dave’s cows from his pasture onto ours.  Keith and Cindy road along and made fast friends with Hercules.

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Everybody loves Hercules….note the cow sneaking up behind Keith

 

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Ahhh…..cows back on the Holler again!

 

Then we watched the eclipse from our back porch.

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A bunch of nerds at the eclipse party.

 

While we were in the 97% zone, we were not completely in the Path of Totality so it just got sort of dim outside.  We did get to view the eclipse with some eclipse glasses and it was pretty cool.  Also, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees during the event and that was pretty cool, too!

Later that day, we went on a horseback ride just down the road at Sage Meadows Ranch.  Keith rode Amarillo, Cindy rode Ocho, and I got to ride on Frito.

Cindy on Ocho, Keith on Amarillo
Frito – who I called Frito Pie

It was idyllic; a beautiful non-humid day for an old west horsey ride through the southern Black Hills.  We ended up on a hill overlooking the Red Canyon where we could see 100-year old ruts in the ground from the old Deadwood to Cheyenne Stagecoach Route. The guide was super nice and informative and we didn’t have to ride nose to tail, we just got to cruise along with our horses and enjoy the day.

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Sage Meadow Ranch riding guide and cowgirl extraordinaire….Holly!

 

On Tuesday, we went up to Hill City and poked through the western art galleries.  This was especially fun for me because Keith is an artist himself, and he is really knowledgeable about painting.  We saw some incredible works and enjoyed another beautiful day of weather.  That evening we ate at the Hitch Rail Bar and Grill in Pringle.  It was a really nice way to wind up their visit before they had to head back to Texas the next morning.

We really had a good time and hope they did too, and then we sent them back to Texas to enjoy the hurricane!  Hope you guys stayed dry and we’ll see ya real soon!