Custer SD Final Days

We went to a rock shop so Adele could pick out a "precious gem." She wanted to buy an aquamarine. So Grandma ponied up the money to buy her choice gem. Here is Adele and the shop owner picking out the perfect aquamarine.

Here she is in the rock shop trying on antlers.

2 of the favorite things to do when on vacation. . .

. . . . . . . . . Relax

. . . . . . . . . Eat donuts

What makes this noise? THUMP!!!. . . thump That would be all the birds flying into the windows. I think they see the reflection of the forest and don't realize that there is a window that they just flew into. Many birds would drop feeling dazed and lay on the deck for awhile before they were able to fly away. Our little vet was able to pet one while it was trying to recover from a concussion.

Custer SD Day #4

A day at the 1881 Courthouse Museum. The museum features 3 floors plus buildings out back and across the street available for touring. http://www.1881courthousemuseum.com/

Grandma volunteers at the Museum and Adele went to help her one afternoon. This is her playing the old piano.

This is Adele running the book shop.

Cassie is a young adult who volunteers at the Courthouse. Cassie helped Adele with a scavenger hunt all around the museum. The below picture is at the printing shop which is one of the buildings behind the museum.

This is a picture of the jail in the 1881 Courthouse museum.

Adele and Cassie are doing their cleaning duties as part of the volunteer work. It is important to have clean exhibits. Cassie has also been responsible to set/up and design a couple of exhibits.

More cleaning for the cute Cinderellas.

A treat well deserved. . .

Custer SD Day #3

Wednesday July 22 -

Adele and Grandma went to a wild horse sanctuary. They had a bus tour and were able to see this sanctuary land that holds 750 wild horses.
Here is the website all about this Wild Horse Sanctuary: http://www.gwtc.net/~iram/

They had corralled the stallions so there wouldn't be as many offspring come next spring. The stallions were approachable through the fence. Adele wanted to share some of her goldfish snacks with them.

Grandma and Adele asked the bus tour guide if they could and he said yes. (I think the yes answer was accomplished because of the bragging that Adele volunteers for Raccoon Valley Animal Sanctuary).

After the animal Sanctuary, they went to the Mammoth Site. Camera batteries died so thank goodness modern technology has built cameras into cell phones. Very cool since Adele just saw Manny the Mammoth in Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

http://www.mammothsite.com/

Adele and Grandma arrived back to the home late after another long day of adventures.

Paul and I played some pitch with Gpa and read. I was the big winner of the day winning 3 hands and Paul and Gpa each won one. We had a relaxing uneventfilled day.

Custer SD Day #2

Adele and Grandma had a fabulous day together. Paul and I went into town for lunch and picked up a wine candleabra at a store called Walk in the Woods. It is cool. It fits into the top of a wine bottle and you can put votives or tea lights on it.

Adele and Grandma started out with a rock/gem hunt. She found a very nice large white Quartz that we will take home with us. Adele is on the hunt for Rose Quartz and Mica and White Quartz. She watched Treasure Hunter on the travel channel with Paul and ever since then she has wanted to find these stones indigenous to the region here in Custer.

After that they went to the Spirit Horse Escape. http://www.spirithorseescape.com/

Adele fed lots of animals: goats, llamas, burros, horses, and pot bellied pigs. She rode a pony named Polly.

Adele and Grandma explored a mine to eat a picnic lunch that they packed. Peanut Butter for Adele and leftover Reuben sandwich from yesterday for Grandma.

They then went to Old West Town. They spent around 3 hours there in all different rooms like the jailhouse, kitchen, schoolhouse, laundry, etc.

We didn't see them until 6:00 pm.

Custer SD Day #1

We arrived in Custer on Sunday July 19th around 4:00pm. We had a wonderful dinner of bacon wrapped buffalo burgers.

Our first full day today, Monday July 20th, we had lunch at the Alpine Inn http://www.alpineinnhillcity.com/in Hill City, SD for a girl's birthday lunch. Dorothy Redford(Birthday girl, Claire May, Zorra Mae Oaks, Sandy, and Adele.

Adele then wanted to take pictures with the buffalo around town. This is the 5th year for the Custer Stampede in which artists are commissioned to paint life size buffalo as well as table tops and other free form art. The buffalo are displayed around Custer SD and then auctioned off in Sept. http://www.custerstampede.com/

Here are pics of her with the 6 lifesize Buffalo this year up for auction:

Here is Adele with a favorite from a prior year:

One residence had a herd - 5 Buffalo:

Adele's picture in the paper

Adele May made the Des Moines Register Tuesday June 30! There was a small feature about the Des Moines Christian School in the newspaper and Adele's photo was one that was chosen. She was eating ice cream at an ice cream social with Chloe (younger sister of Brett. Brett is in the same class as Adele).