The odd case of pinkness in the giant mine.

Among the fabulous views I enjoyed during my weekend in the Black Hills was a giant mine in Lead.  While we had parked our car right next to the mine all weekend, large piles of snow against the fence and a sign instructing us not to climb the fence or step on the flowers to catch a view of the mine kept us from seeing anything.  (We saw people totally stepping on the non-existent flowers in the flower bed to see inside the mine, but I am kind of a rule follower so my brain strongly desired to see the mine in the manner the good folks of Lead intended.)

Finally on our last day we walked the two blocks to the viewing center and boy was it cool.  If you look closely on the snowy side, there is a fence four 'rows' up - no way would I be caught walking there!

I am still stumped as to the purpose of the mysterious pink item observed deep in the mine.  (See photo below.)  Ideas?  It sure looks like a ticket booth to me, but that's just ridiculous.

Wishing you a view of something unusual.

See on,

Julee

The unexpected.

So my husband and I took a long weekend vacation to Lead, SD and the Terry Peak Ski Area.  We had pretty great weather.  It snowed overnight leaving a nice dusting of fresh snow to ski on, and temperatures were between 30 - 40 degrees F most of the time.

We stayed in a fabulous hotel, the Town Hall Inn (which I highly recommend).  They gave us a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day and they scraped the snow off our car before we woke up the morning we were leaving.  Talk about service, definitely above and beyond.  Plus the room was amazing.  We stayed in the 'Judges Chambers' which had lots of windows and was huge.  It was quiet, we never heard any neighbors.  Although I do have to say the City of Lead is very enthusiastic about their plowing, which they would do at 4 am and again at 7 am those days they plowed.

One highlight of the trip for me was an unexpected moment when we were walking along the main street in Lead and out popped three deer from the front yard of a house onto the sidewalk in front of us.  (This was my favorite shot even though two of the deer had already moved beneath an evergreen.)

My other favorite time was driving through the Badlands.  We saw maybe two other cars, so had several lovely private hikes.  We also enjoyed a lot of wildlife.  (I saw my first wild cat, but he was too fast for my camera.) 

 

There was, of course, all the usual loveliness of the Black Hills.  The evergreens looked glorious with their fresh coat of snow each day.

See on,
Julee