Chore Day and Play Day

Yesterday, we needed to get our chores done. Jim took his usual role, that is, the laundry and grocery shopping, while I stayed home and cleaned. I didn't spend a lot of time inside, though, because I was anxious to try out the Dri-Wash 'n Guard we purchased from the McFalls. I wanted to see how it would work on the Castle. I finished my inside work as fast as I could and headed out with the spray bottle of Dri-Wash. I cleaned the lower half of one side of the Castle. Wow, that is some good cleaner. When they say it doesn't streak, they mean it. The dust and dirt came right off and left a really shiny, clean surface. If you want to find out more about it, here's the web site. It is a bit pricey, but well worth it, in my opinion.

We did get a little play time later in the afternoon. We went for a drive on the back roads to see if we could find any good spots to look for garnets. We didn't really find anything too interesting, other than beautiful scenery. Besides, we wanted to get back home in time to watch the season premier of The Closer.

Today we headed out to go to Sylvan Lake, which is about 8 miles from the campground, so Jim could fish and I could walk. But, when we got up there, it was packed to the gills with vacationers. So we turned around and went back down the hill to Stockade Lake which is about 5 miles from us. The little fishing spot I'd told Jim about was open, so he got set up and started fishing, and I went off walking and photographing while he fished.

Studying this scenery is sure a lot more fun than studying human resource data reports:

I watched this family of ducks quite a while. I missed a great picture when one of the youngsters slid down the spillway!

This was Jim's fishing spot:

He caught two fish, one was a rock bass and the other a small mouth bass. He didn't keep either one. I walked around to the spillway and the dam. I had the 300 mm lens with me, and I tried to get a picture of the birds that we thought might be osprey. I'm not sure what they are, but I am sure they're not osprey. My best guess is that they could be great blue herons, but I'm not at all sure. I couldn't get a good enough picture for me to identify.

After a couple of hours, Jim was ready to go, so we decided to head to Hot Springs. When we came through there on our way to Custer, we saw a music store that carried guitar strings, which he needed. I wanted to visit The Mammoth Site, where, 26,000 years ago, mammoths became trapped in a sinkhole and couldn't get out. Their bones are being excavated, after a developer discovered the site when he was starting to build on the land. A large building has been built over the site, where they now give tours and have a small museum. I think our guide said they have uncovered a total of 53 mammoths so far.

This is the replica of a mammoth at the entrance:


An example of the bones we saw on the tour:








And and a display in the museum:

We came home to the roast beef I'd put in the crock pot this morning. I have enjoyed the past 2 days here, can't wait for more adventures!