A Colorful Discovery

This past weekend was once again blessed with some colorful adventure! I headed up to the northern black hills where I had the opportunity to visit a good friend and spend some time in her world before heading into the glorious spearfish canyon. I had heard the canyon was beautiful, but what I had heard did not do it justice! It was magnificent! And it was an excellent time of year to see it because the Autumn colors are beginning to be visible, but many of the green leaves are still present as well. I had a chance to do some hiking in the area and discovered an incredible overlook where I stayed for quite a while simply looking out at the canyon. I also found two different waterfalls and some glorious pathways alongside the little spearfish river. I was keenly reminded of the poem "the road not taken" by Robert Frost. One of the attached pictures even shows two roads diverging in the yellow wood. We are surrounded by beauty and wonder, if we will but only stop and take the time to see it!

In addition to the pictures I have attached to this email, I do have quite a few others that I have just uploaded onto facebook. Many of my pictures are on facebook if you are ever interested in seeing more of what I am writing about!

On my way out of the canyon that night I passed a group of bikers attempting to pull a bike up out of a gully so I stopped and asked if I might be of help. I ended up getting my rope out and rigging it to the bike and then tying it to another truck that also happened by (I was planning on using mine, but he pulled up and conveniently had his tow hitch a few feet from where I had the rope) and helped pull it out. Without the rope and truck we would not have got it out, so it was very good that I happened along! He had been riding alone a few minutes behind his friends when I deer ran out in front of him. In an attempt to miss the deer he hit a rock which sent him off the road and down the gully. Scary stuff!

The weather is changing here! It is quite cold outside today and even spit snow this afternoon!

I spent yesterday surveying in the cave! I was supposed to be working, but I was able to arrange things to where I got to spend the day in the cave instead, which was way more exciting! I am very tired today though! We were in a different part of the cave then where I surveyed before and we didn't find any Alvin signatures this time, but it was still a grand adventure! And we did survey another 456 feet of passageway, which isn't bad! And most exciting, I actually got to help name two rooms that we found on this trip! The first is "Frontier's edge" (can you guess who was behind that name?!) and the second is "dragon's hollow." So now there are three areas of the cave that bear a name that I was a part of!

I am also probably going to spend all day Sunday surveying in Jewel Cave. And when I say all day I mean 10-12 hours. That is longer than I have ever been in a cave so far, so we will see how that goes!

As for now, I am off to go and watch episode five of "America's Best Idea: the National Parks."

Living the adventure!