Perfect Timing (Hot Springs, SD)

We are all settled in at Cold Brook Lake - Corps of Engineers park.  

We are only one mile from Hot Springs SD.  A very interesting looking town with sandstone buildings with a river and a waterfall in the downtown area. Yes, I do plan to take pictures of the area soon, but I'll be limited on posting photos since our internet is very slow here.  I might need to find the local library and look into using their WiFi.

We like this area a lot, but we are dry camping.  This campground is not setup for large rigs or for hook-ups (no utilities).  I can handle a couple of weeks of dry camping, but not too long.  Having to ration water/showers, turning on our generator to power heaters or my iron has me daydreaming about the convenience of flipping a switch for POWER.

So, here's the perfect timing.  It turns out the camp host is leaving on Monday, 23 June, and the lead ranger asked us if we were willing to fill in.  Can we?  You bet...we can stay until September!  The best part - we get to move into the camp host's site...a very nice site with water, 50 amp electric, and a sewer dump into the pit toilet vault via a sewer solution hookup (a little more work).  The best of two worlds - we can stay and have full hook-ups!

The trade for the site is simple, help any arriving campers who need assistance with self registering, be a on-site presence and call authorities with any problems, minor restocking of pit toilet supplies, and minor trash pickup.  Two summer interns do all the major duties around the large park.  The park itself is large and spread out, but the camping area is smaller with only 13 total sites.  The day use area at the lake gets the most usage from the locals, and there is an archery range.

The weather has been a little crazy.  It goes from hot and humid to cold and wet then back to hot and humid in one day.  Hmm, a lot of changing of clothes.  A couple of nights ago, we had thunderstorm warnings with a chance of golf-ball size hail.  Dangerous for pets and people so stay indoors.  There were a few tent campers and of course, I worried about them.  One family packed up and left.  The other group left their tents and went for a drive.  The hail only got to the size of large peas which can still hurt, and the heavy rains lasted a couple of hours before it passed over us.

In the morning I peeked out to see a clothes line strung from one end of the camping area to the other side.  It looked funny, but if you don't have access to a dryer...well, you got to do whatever you can to dry out your gear, right?

On The Cutting Board

Ironing is out for awhile, but I am getting some hand-work done.  Actually, this is my quilt therapy for stressful times.  It seems to be working quite well.  I went from sleeping a couple of hours a night to sleeping in late.  Even the cats could not wake me at 4 am for an early breakfast.

Variation of the Lover's Knot pattern

I have been working on this project for over a year.  It seems to be the one that I enjoy doing the most when I need to calm down and relax.  Plus, it is very portable so I am taking it outside while I enjoy the sunshine and the sound of birds.  I tried to sew while watching one of the cats, but they are not cooperating.  If I stand with one of them, they just lay in one spot.  I sit down to sew and the little turkey decides it is time to go for a walk.  It doesn't matter which one I have outdoors.  They all do it.

Okay, I'm all caught up for now.  I'm looking forward to doing some more exploring of the Black Hills area, to our new jobs, and of course, to making some more quilts!

Happy Quilting!