Jambooree (hockey tourney name)

Bridger had his first game at 8:15 this morning.  He had four games today.  His last one was at 7pm.  It made for a long day.  Bridger started out rather tired and not so into the whole idea of playing hockey today.  He didn't score a goal until the last game.  He played goalie in the third game.  He was pretty excited about playing goalie.  He told us at lunch he thought he could do it.  He must have asked the coach or something.  Darin did help coach.  He wasn't the "head" coach that skates on the ice with the kids.  The kids only play half ice and there is no score keeping, which also means no penalties.  Bridger is #9 in the yellow.  He is the goalie in the goalie pictures.  He didn't do any better or worse than the other goalies.  He came home wanting to get online to look up goalie equipment.  He finally got the picture when I made a comparison of it being 5 DSi games to one set of goalie equipment.  That's around 5 hundred dollars, which may or may not include the mask.  That can be another couple hundred.  I am hoping he loses interest in the whole goalie thing.

One more game tomorrow at 7:30am.  Then it is do what we need to do around the house before the whole trick or treat thing.  I am thinking it would just be easier to go back to work than be home lately.  The football team will play here in Casper this coming Sat against Gillette.  It could be touch and go.  Gillette gave them a run for their money in the first half in the season game they had.  Two more Sats and Darin is OURS!!!!  Ha-ha, I am sure there will off season stuff to do......

Halloween party



Sammy lost her first tooth.

  Today was Bridger's Halloween party at school.  I arranged to have the day off and was able to be at school for the party.  I ended up getting to make Nachos for the party.  Lugging my new crockpot up the hill wasn't much fun.  I actually drove up to the school, but at 1:45 there was already an issue of parking.  I had to circle the block and walk up the hill.  I had Bridger's costume in a bag also.  The wind was blowing 30mph.  It was an adventure.  I was in costume also.  Snow White.

Can you tell who Bridger is?



what do you think of Nate's scary clown parents



Darin made it for the last of the party



playing a game

  So after I got everything up the hill, I discovered the camera didn't have an SD card-so no pictures.  I also discovered that I forgot a white shirt for Bridger.  I "ran" home and got the card and shirt.  The shirt was too small, but obviously got the SD card for the camera.

After the party we 3 came home.  Darin rested before the game and got a bite to eat.  Bridger and I headed off to the Ice Arena for the Halloween skate.  I asked a couple of parents about their child joining us, but they already had plans.  It was a nice surprise to find Ian, Bridger's hockey friend at the ice arena.  Bridger wore his skeleton costume for skating.  He won two prizes from the games they did.  We left there and went to another Halloween party at a dance studio.  The girl twins parents' have a dance studio.  They put on a city wide party tonight.  Not a lot there beyond the dancers and their families.  The twins Mom sat with me for awhile and thanked me for bringing Bridger.  Bridger's favorite twin has been home from school sick the last couple of days.  He was disappointed she couldn't be there. 
Darin had a playoff game tonight.  We drove up after the party and it was half time, score 24-0, NC was winning. 

Bridger has hockey all day tomorrow.   His division is having a tournament.  I am sure there will be some pictures from that.

Little Devil's Tower Trail

beginning of Little Devil's Tower Trail



while he was having fun




clouds across the rocks, just spires (no Needles)




we got to scramble up this, steeper than it looks




more clouds



more spires, but not The Needles

more scrambling to the top

rock IN Sylvan Lake-We named it Dori

That's Harney Peak-our unaccomplished goal

Fun Wagon Bus Driver

Last part of journey through Custer State Park

The big hike on Sat was the "Little Devil's Tower Trail".  It was supposed to be 1.9 miles one way.  It seemed to truly be ALL uphill, especially to Bridger.  It made no difference to him that all uphill one way meant all downhill going back.  We used our hiking sticks, but didn't post any of those pictures.  Bridger found large piece of tree that resembled a sword.  I had lots of conversations seemingly to myself about running with sharp objects in our hands.  I think it was more terrifying to me to have him up on the very top and near the edges. 

The last part of the trail was described as treacherous.  We had to walk through the tree roots, which I thought must surely be the treacherous part, it was very steep.  Bridger got ahead of me and came back and told me the trail ended and there was nothing to see.  I seriously thought about believing, him but this trail was the trade-off for Harney Peak.  So by gosh I was going to see Harney Peak.  He told me the trail ended and the trail marker had a pointy diamond.  His pointy diamond was an arrow indicating the path continued up between two boulders.  The long skinny picture is that part of the trail.  Bridger started up again ahead of me and made some comment about "skinny people".  He thought I might have trouble because I WASN"T as little as him.  We climbed out of that and a boudler field lay ahead of us all nicely marked with blue diamonds and arrows.  It was fun scrambling over all of that.  I tried not thinking about what goes up must come down.

We got to the top and couldn't see Harney Peak.  You can not imagine my frustration.  Across the way was all clouds and they kept building.  It looked like a storm was going to roll over the top of us.  We waited awhile and watched the heat roll up from the valley floor and make clouds when the heat hit the colder air.  It was almost spooky.  Bridger loved the part about being on top and see so far ( where the clouds weren't).  Some other people eventually came along and we headed back down.  It took at least 1 1/2 hours to get up there and barely an hour coming back.  Going downhill seems to make a difference.

We drove back down to Sylan Lake and climbed on the rocks that are part of the lake.  Bridger saw his Dori rock there.  Up near the top of our trail Bridger grabbed himself and hunched down-he told him he had to go #2.  I laughed at him!  I said too bad, buddy.  He told me on the way back that if you just wait long enough you can put off the whole ordeal.  So when we got to Sylvan Lake I pointed out the pit toilets.  I stupidly said something about not falling in.  He walked in and came right back out demanding that we drive across to the other side of the lake so he could use the "blue" bathrooms (port-a-potty). 

I offered to eat out, but he wanted to get back to the cabin.  There was a playground with his name on it and he had not gotten to use it.  We got back made dinner, talked to Darin, "tubbed" and watched a little TV before we concked out from our hiking .

I decided to use the 7 day pass I legally paid for into Custer State Park.  They don't man the check stations this time of year.  We drove back through the State Park and out to Custer, SD.  It took us home from there.  We had a wonderful time and can hardly wait to share all the places with Darin.

Day 2 and patriotism

We always have fun looking through the flags at Mt Rushmore.  I decided to take pictures of the ones that I know to be the birthplaces of the grandparents.  With the exception of Grandpa Roger, the flags of your birth state are below.  I thought you could play a little trivia game and guess, "your child's in-laws birth state".  Grandpa Roger's was too easy as it was curled around and the name was exposed.  There are some additional flags that I thought were interesting in regards to the red, white and blue theme.  Feel free to guess those-for some of you I know it won't be guessing.



Isn't he the most handsome little boy in front of Mt. Rushmore!



Bridger took this one, it was the most exciting wildlife we saw.

I maybe milking this trip out a bit, but you have had 3 days of blogs with pictures!!!!  Tomorrow I will do the last hike.  Tomorrow we get to pick-up our ceramics.  Bridger is very excited to get to show Darin his masterpiece.  It will have to make the blog as well.

2nd hike day 1

After our stop for Community Caves and Bridal Veil Falls we went onto Devil's Bathub.  It had been greater than 15 years since I had been back into the area.  I had a hard time remembering which "pool" it was.  I saw a picture someone else took today and I think we might have been wrong.  There are several pooled areas. 

The Cleopatra Creek has to be crossed right off.  Bridger still had his tennis shoes on and I suggested to him he try his Bogs.  We went back and let him change.  I just kept my water shoes on.  The log picture below was our next crossing.  I  crossed it with him the first time.  There is some deadfall on the end you can see on the right of the picture.  We both had fun trying to walk over it.  There was one point I thought I might be going into the creek-for myself.

he did this twice, I only did it once

devil's bath tub



loved getting his feet wet

Bridger repeatedly tested the height of his Bogs.  He left with wet feet, not dry feet.

bridger with second walking stick

On our way in we met a dad and two teenagers.  He also offered up his walking stick.  We had left our newly acquired walking sticks in the car.  He also was insistent saying the stick was helpful with all the crossings.  I suppose we crossed the creek up to 7 times.  Bridger did fall in towards the end on our way back.  I turned my back for one second and then I hear a startled gasp and a splash.  His shorts were wet, his sweatshirt was wet and when we were almost out-he fell again.  This time he scraped his knee well enough blood was running.  All we could do was keep going.  I knew I had alcohol wipes and band-aids.  He was more worried about getting blood in his Bogs.

wedding tree

This is known as the wedding tree-Two different species that grew together.  I probably wouldn't have remembered to look for it, except we were checking out the odd knot and discovered the other tree joined to it at the back.


bridger said this looked like a butt, I thought a heart



this isn't as high as it seems, over the water was worse

This ended up being Bridger' favorite hike.  He climbed, balanced, ran, walked through water, and fell down all thoroughly enjoying himself.  He was ready to keep exploring after Devil's Bathtub, but was getting late and we still had over an hour to Hill City where we were staying.  I had wanted to get Roughlock Falls in as well, but it is a mile back from just the parking area.  Hopefully, another time.  Bridger was hoping we could get to it on Sunday, but we didn't go home that way.

Cleopatra Creek drops into Spearfish Creek

This is actually at the beginning.  He wasn't this happy after falling into the creek and later scraping his knee.  Cleopatra Creek is on the left, Spearfish Creek is on the right.

Home again

The picturesd are out of order thanks to my ineptness of blogging.



We walked around the edge of the cliff in center picture. We were along the tree line just below the top of the rocks. We could see our vehicle and other people/vehicles below.

Bridal Veil Falls

Waterfall at the top of the Community Caves. We are looking along the side before we went out onto the ledge overlooking the canyon. The tops of the caves is at the bottom of the picture right of the tree.

See the dry creek bed and our vehicle-maroon one with the car carrier on top.

Almost to the cae. The waterfall comes down over the rock just to the right of the center tree. The water flows under the rocks we were walking on. See Bridger's walking stick-not using it is he.

Below is the side view where I am standing in one of the openings. It looks alot further down, but it isn't.

What an awesome 3 days Bridger and I had in South Dakota. We took off Friday morning and got to Spearfish around 1pm. Bridger opted for McDonald's, which was fine by me, it meant we could keep going. We got into the Canyon and after one misadventure we found the right place. I had directions, but it was landmark directions-like, just past mile marker 13 there is a parking lot. Parking lot-really? Mile Marker 13 was not ever found, but I did find mile marker 14, only there were two pull-outs and you guessed it-I picked the wrong one first!

The next part of the directions said head to the biggest curve in the creek and up into the area between the two hills. The creek was dry and the "hills" were sheer canyon walls. What we were looking for was meant to be found, though. Finally I spied a trail or at least hoped it was a trail! We were heading for a place called, "Community Caves". We met some people coming down and I, of course, asked if they were coming from the caves. They said yes. We chatted briefly. They offered us their walking sticks. They seemed insistent and made comments about having good traction/tread on shoes. I had on a pair of water/walking shoes and Bridger had tennis shoes. We took the walking sticks, which were by the way, just tree limbs. We were very fortunate to have them. It was treacherous and steep to get to the caves. It was neat to feel and hear the water running down under our feet beneath the rocks. There is a waterfall off the top of the caves that you hear before you see.

We checked out the "caves" and then wandered around the side onto another trail. It took us out overlooking the canyon. We could see the people that we got the sticks from leaving. We saw and heard other people, but they were going into the woods on the other side of the road.

We climbed back down and once below gave thanks for the walking sticks. We travelled on down the road and stopped for pictures of Bridal Veil Falls. Bridger wanted to go up to the falls, but there is a sign posted requesting you stay out of the falls area. Darin and I used to walk up to the falls and go behind the falls. Those were the good ole days. I didn't tell Bridger about that.

I will blog about our next hike tomorrow.

More Hockey Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures from Bridgers game. The second one he is playing defense and skating back to help protect the net.

Ginni called tonight and said they are having a great time in the Hills. They have done a couple of hikes. It sounds like the weather has not been too bad for them. There should be pictures and an update tomorrow.

I have been busy with football this weekend. My varsity team is no longer undefeated. We lost a tough one 18 - 17. It was the one to loss though. We already clinched the #1 seed so the game did not effect anything other than mental. Play offs this week, we play Green River at home.

We had our last Freshman game today. We lost 25 - 0. It was a Wyoming game; rain, sleet, wind and mud. All of the kids wanted to belly slide through the mud in the middle of the field after the game, so we let them. The funny part was all of the Cheyenne East fans that were leaving stopped, came back and started cheering the kids. It made them feel good.

I hope I get to sleep in tomorrow.

" Well, on uh, Fake Draw Screen Right I uh, pick up the linebacker if he's comin, 'less of course it's Butkus, then I simply notify the quarterback to send for a preacher. "