The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Roadside Attractions

Carhenge, because...why not?

You all probably know that the US is just fun of odd places to visit and mostly just look at. There's more than one within a day's drive of where I live now. I've decided I need to finally just literally go the extra mile and visit a few of them, so here goes.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Things We Do In South Dakota, Part 2, Festivals of Trees

One of the corridors at the state capital building this year.
A tree for breast cancer people on the left.

I never realized how much of a "thing"  a "Festival of Trees" is until I lived in South Dakota. I imagine lots of places have them, although I do not recall actually attending any except in SoDak. But here, they really are something. Every little place seemed to have one this December, and it's clear these things are traditions in all those towns and cities.

At home in Lead I was an usher more than once for our festival, held at the Historic Homestake Opera House (HHOH) as one of their regular fund raisers for the place. The Opera House was one of many civic buildings originally built by the Homestake Mine Company to improve the daily lives of the miners and their families.

Restored Opera House entrance plaza.
The spaces on the left used to house the pool and recreation areas.
Now they are offices and an art gallery owned by the local Arts Council.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Things We do in South Dakota, part 1

Sock Monkey was so impressed with Dignity

Wow! Two months since I last wrote. I've been thinking about needing to do another post soon, but you know how it goes. One thing after another after another, and next a whole season is gone.

Part of what I did in the fall was to travel, and that's what I plan to write about. I have several posts in my my mind, but let's start with this one which involves two different trips, with stop-offs in places well known in South Dakota.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: South Dakota and Beyond

Smokey Rose knew right away how to get comfy in our
Black Hills home.

Smokey Rose and I are now living in our home in the Black Hills. We no longer have a place in Salt lake, just this little condo of ours. We arrived here around July 1 and spent most of July "moving in." Of course this place was fully furnished and all, but I brought with a carload and a pickup truck load of boxes of things that had to be integrated with everything that was already here. A lot of it was clothes, books and craft supplies. There were also some kitchen things, a bit of artwork and some misc things plus stuff like food, cleaning supplies, other consumables such as office supplies. We are mostly done except for the boxes with papers in them. That can wait to be sorted through until a rainy or snowy day comes along.

The Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Nowhere Special. She Always Wanted to Go There

A road to Nowhere Special

No doubt every part of the country has plenty of Nowhere Special places. I know the intermountain west is riddled with ghost towns, micro-towns, failed towns and all kinds of other places like that. A couple of days before I left the Hills the autumn weather was just perfect. I decided to just get in the car and drive in the Black Hills along some roads I never or seldom take to see a couple of Nowhere Specials.

Retirement Planning - Part III - Places

 I am pretty sure I will not stay in SLC as my winter home for more than a couple of years after I quit working. But if I were to move away, where would I go? What am I looking for in a new place?

I need some criteria!

At Home in the Hills and a Car Story

Our retreat bedroom

Smokey Rose and I are at our home in the hills, and we are very happy. We both love this place a lot and feel so relaxed and comfortable here. I can't say we do all that much that is interesting to write about. We are on retreat.

Planning to Be Retired - Part Deux - Where to Live Lists

Should I stay or should I go?

Another Thing you may or may not know exists is lists about good & bad places to live when you are retired. Of course the world is full of lists of all kinds; I guess we love to read them, so why not? I read them all the time. None of them ever prove to be really helpful, I must say, but still I can't help but click on the latest list by someone about something. They are good, clean entertainment.....and food for conversation or blog posts.

Happy in the Spring

A postcard from Belarus
which gave me joy when I found it in my mailbox

Spring is officially here. I might as well be happy. I am happy. There's lots to be happy about right now.

Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Bison South Dakota

On SD 21 heading east

Before I tell you all about the town of Bison, I have to give you all some practical travel advice. Remember how I said I bought a bottle of Starbucks Frappucino in Buffalo? I'm hear to tell you don't be fooled by the appearance of  those sweet, little faux milk bottles. If you happen to have one of these wolf-in-sheep's-clothing items in an ordinary cup holder in a Subaru, opened up so that you can swig it while driving, you know, the way you're supposed to do with bottles of liquids you buy in gas station C-stores, and you decide to stop rather suddenly, said bottle will fly out of said cup holder and whatever contents are left inside that innocent little thing will go all over everywhere inside your vehicle. I'm just telling you.

Blue Lady Travels in the Red Lands: Buffalo South Dakota

The road, the grass, the sky. Welcome to South Dakota, a quintessential red state.

I got my new super secure, Homeland Security approved driver's license this week. It has at least two holograms on the front, a big picture and a small picture and half the back is mysterious bar code-y stuff. You can all feel more secure now about flying if I happen to be in the plane with you. I don't get on planes very often these days, so I don't suppose this will effect too many people, but, hey, I'm doing my bit.

I asked my friends on Facebook what this new little card could do for me. I got two good replies....one from Josie who said I could now drive like a madwoman, and then David just wrote "Road Trip!" So I decided to combine the two and take a madwoman's road trip.

I got out the map and decided to check out Buffalo, South Dakota, in honor of Sally T. whose home town is Buffalo, New York and who has been blogging recently about all the neat things to do around there. Next time you find yourself in her part of the country, go ahead and use her blog as a tour guide.  You'll have a great time. There are lots of things to do in the greater Niagara area, many of them involve getting to eat cheese and/ or cupcakes.

Summer Home

I'm at my summer home in South Dakota now. Haven't been out traveling, like to the Badlands or anything like that. I'm trying to puzzle out in my mind what is it that I do here and why do I think it's worth the trouble to come out here?