We – Meg & I stayed in one room, & my friends Evie & Pam stayed in another – got back a few days ago from our trip with the Gate 1 Tour Group to see some of the national parks and other sights in the western states. We flew into Rapid City. I had never been to South Dakota before, so that was very exciting for me. We’d left early in the morning, so with the time change we had a while to walk around downtown and explore the city before supper time. It was a very cool place. In keeping with nearby Mount Rushmore, they had statues of every president on the street corners around town. We didn’t have time to see them all, but we had fun guessing who was who as we were approaching. The sculptors did a really good job – we knew this was George H W Bush from a ways away :-).

And of course knew Harry S Truman from the famous photo…

There was the prettiest little park near out hotel that we spent some time exploring. The weather was perfect for standing on the bridge and listening to the creek run under the road.

This past Thursday we were in Chester to see Clara and her Lady Blue Eagle teammates in action. So proud of all of our girls. They lost the match by 3 shots, but I think everyone was pleased with how they played – Clara said it was the best score the team had shot since she’d been on the team, so that was exciting. I got these pictures afterwards – Sherri came up to see her in action.

And reviewing the match with her dad…

This afternoon Jeff & I headed to Chesnee – about an hour down the road – to their Labor Day Festival, to hear the Piedmont Boys – a SC band that Jeff has loved for years, and that I like a lot, too. They only played maybe an hour & a half, but they were so good it was well worth the drive to get there.