Summer Gets Busy

Man it's been busy the last few weeks! We went out to South Dakota for a family reunion at my aunt and uncle's ranch. What a cool place. It had been 3 years since the last reunion and instead of only one child (ours) at the event, there were 5. Wow, time goes fast. Here are some quick highlights of the trip:

My uncle Randy has his own runway and and plane that he built himself. Notice how the plane says "Experimental".
Randy took me up in the plane and showed me the sights. Not too many people get to see Mt. Rushmore from this vantage.
Back at the ranch, I was able to get my brother Beau and Abby out for a mountain bike ride. I think this is the second time Abby's been on dirt. She did great. Hopefully I can get her out again soon...
Beau rode my Turner and rode the Blue Beast. I think Beau's convinced he needs a new bike.
Beau riding across a bridge near a weird church camp near by. The downhill to the river was pretty loose and rocky. He didn't walk the bike once.
We took the kids to see Mt. Rushmore one day. Very touristy but worth checking out. Notice how there are people on Teddy's head. On the 3rd of July they have a spectacular fireworks show that takes them a week to clean up from. We visited on the 4th... I'd say that's SUPER AMERICAN!
On the way back to the ranch we had quite possibly the worst lunch ever at the Bumpin' Baffalo Saloon in Hill City. Highly recommend eating anything but what this place serves. Our burgers were burnt through and the french fries even sucked. Typical tourist town.

On the way out of town we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies. I stayed in the truck with the overtired, sweaty, cranky boys while Ab ran in. I was able to get a pic of this guy waiting for his lady...where's your bike dude?
Once back on the Ranch I was able to cut out and go for another ride while the rest of the family went for a walk up to Randy's hangar. I had done some research and found a map of a trail called Loop 15 from a Acme Bike shop in Rapid City. The map seemed easy enough to follow and I showed it to Randy who grew up in the area. He said that it was right across the road and I could cut into the middle of it via a forest access road and not have to drive the trail head. Perfect! So I headed out at 2:30 in the heat of the afternoon with a stomach full of nasty Bumpin Buffalo food.

I found the forest access road easily and stumbled upon the single track crossing it within 5 minutes. "Wow", I thought to myself, "this is almost too easy!". Foreshadowing anyone?? The trail was sweet and I was able to follow the map pretty easily until I got sucked into the wonderful singletrack and stopped checking the map to see where I was. There were open meadows:

and tight windy tree sections throughout the ride.
I went through a couple rivers, mud bogs, over log bridges and flew on tacky black windy dirt trail until I realized that I was lost. Not, hopelessly lost but mildly lost. I had come to another intersection with a four-wheeler trail and lost the singletrack. The thing about the Black Hills is that it all looks the same and there is almost no point of reference to help you find direction like the snow capped mountains on the front range of Colorado.

So what do you do? I say, WWBGD? (That's What Would Bear Grylls Do?). Remembering an episode where Bear gets dropped in the woods somewhere and follows a river down to civilization, I decided to use the same tactic. I followed a trickle of a stream to a creek and finally more of a rushing river. I could feel that it was taking me in the complete wrong direction but I didn't want to bushwhack in the forest and risk getting even more lost. The good thing is that I ended up on a pretty heavily traveled dirt road and talked to a couple guys on four wheelers who pointed me in the right direction. The bad part was that I ended up riding an extra 10 miles or so on top of what I had already ridden (20?) and was nearly out of water. I made it back to the Ranch almost 4 hours after I started and got roaring applause from everyone (15+ family members). It turns out that Ab was starting to form a search and rescue party to go out and find me. Needless to say, she was not happy but glad to see I was OK..... I'd so do that ride again!!

Because there were so many people at the Ranch, a lot of us stayed in tents. This is the mega tent we stayed in for the 4 days:
The boys did great in the tent. So good, that we ended up planning another camping trip with a bunch of Lyons families a few weeks later....