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Almost from the beginning of white men in the Black Hills people took up mining claims, most
all of the were looking for a way to get rich fast. Most left the Hills disappointed, some stayed to
worked the fast track to hell in the deep hard rock mines, others homesteaded and took up ranching
or farming, One thing that remained up until Orland Kieffer sold his store at Rockerville in 1968 was the
use of "free gold" (gold panned from streams) as a medium of exchange. ...

A week ago Thursday, after the big windstorm finished blowing through, I was up on a ridgeline in the
northern Black Hills checking on a radio repeater antenna. I was going along the trail when I saw, up
near the top of a yellow bark Ponderosa Pine, a ratter tattered fellow sitting on a branch. I shot a line
up to him and he climbed down. Gave him a cup of coffee and some my lunch and he told me he had
been walking along a road north of Spokane, when the Paluser (windstorm) ...

I just finished "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. If you have an interest in the battles between
the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age and the Teddy Roosevelt Progressives. The book tells how the
US Forest Service and the National Forests were established and about the 1910 Fire that saved
both of them. I now have a better understanding of how the Forest Service came by it's aversion to
wild fires.

What hit home hard for me was the descriptions (based ...

Well, the aspen and birch are starting to change colors at the higher elevations of the Black Hills, the understory at the lower elevations (poison ivy, wild grapes, gooseberry bushes) are at the peak of color this week. The nights are getting down into the mid 40's and the sun is setting earlier every day.

The wildlife feel the changes coming, the deer and elk are chowing down putting on that last bit of fat for the winter. The bighorn sheep are moving down the mountain sides ...

The ramp up is over and it is here!!!!! The 70th edition of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Races!
One of those events of organized chaos that help clear the mind and repair the soul. The feeling of
daredevil freedom that comes from doing 85 mph down the road with the wind in your face, the roar
of the engine, the heat of the exhaust and then sharing a spot of shade with another like minded
individual just can't be beat. For that brief period you aren't anything but part ...