Black Hills Vacation 2009

We spent a wonderful July week in the South Dakota Black Hills with my blended family. My Dad and Annette celebrated their anniversary by renting a house on Terry Peak and inviting all their 6 children and 5 grandchildren along.

We spent a night in the Badlands on the way out, where the boys had great fun climbing rocks. In the Black Hills, the boys met their Montana (step)cousins Zoey and Mia for the first time and spent time with my brother Liam who we don't see very often. We all spent time together and separately seeing various attractions in the Hills. We toured a cave, visited a petrified forest, visited Ken's brother Dave and his wife Celia, who cooked us a wonderful meal! We explored the Needles: giant stone monoliths perfect for climbing, and spent a couple of hours at Custer State Park where we petted burros and spotted bison, prairie dogs, and pronghorn. Mount Rushmore and the Alpine Slide near the monument were both highlights for the boys.

We took a side trip to Wyoming to see Devil's Tower and a "Bison Jump," a sinkhole which was used by at least 6 Native American tribes between 1500 and 1800 a.d. to trap and hunt bison. The boys were excited to witness a reenacted gunfight in the old west town of Deadwood. The entire family spent a day on a pontoon on Lake Pactola, and on our last day in the Hills, we rode a real 1880's steam engine- a dream-come-true for Toby.

We watched deer graze in our backyard, took turns cooking dinner for the group, played board games, relaxed on the porch and in the hot tub. One evening, Ken, Liam and I biked around the mountain neighborhood - the downhill runs were great fun but trying to get up the hills in the thin air of 6000 feet made us feel VERY out of shape! We returned with many photos and happy memories of our vacation!

Beetles and Nail Polish

Early summer evenings bring these ferocious looking beetles to our yard. Our kids delight in catching them every year. They rear up on their hind legs and show off their pincers if you get close! By July, there don't seem to be as many of them. This year, we decided to be scientifical about our observations.


We decided to count them. But how can you tell the ones you counted last night from the ones you didn't count tonight? Answer: Nail polish!


We put a dab of finger-nail polish on the back of each beetle we saw in our yard. Eleven beetles got a yellow dab on June 14th and six got an orange dab the next night. We've been too busy/ out of town/ raining to count any more beetles after that.

So, will we see beetles with yellow or orange dabs on their backs next year? How many? What color should we dab beetles with next year? Stay tuned to find out!

(Jonah and I discovered via the internet that these are stag beetles. They are feeding off of rotting wood under ground. Indeed, we find a lot of them in the part of the yard where the previous owner had a garden and rose bush.)