I'm baaaaaaack!

I missed you all so, so much!  We were in Keystone, SD the last few days, and it was so weird to e without computer... without cell phone reception for a 3 day weekend!  Who really does that anymore???  Oh, I guess we do. 

So today's post is dedicated to Alyx... Yes, I know I've been talking about her a lot lately.  She is just so dang cool!  So what I haven't told you before about her is that she's basically my twin... who's younger than me, taller, prettier, and born in the fall to a different set of parents.  But other than that, we could absolutely be twins.  Well, so I was talking to the twin one night in June, and I told her that Ammon and I would be taking a trip to Mount Rushmore in July.  And you know what she told me???  That she was going on the same trip a week and a half before Ammon and I!  You'd better believe I was begging and pleading for her to change the dates of her trip.  I am shameless, guys.  Shameless.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be (this time). 

But I knew something that would be almost as good.  I was determined that I would go to some of the same places she went, and take pictures to prove we ALMOST met.  Yup, totally stalkerish.  I don't care.

Alyx recommended checking out Sylvan Lake, and we are so glad that she did.  You can read her post about it here.  I wanted to do the same hike she did, but somehow I failed on that front.  So we did the Sunday Gulch Trail, rated as strenuous, 3 miles long, and should take the average hiker 2-3 hours.  We did it in 1 hour, 30 minutes. 

So, this butterfly landed just long enough for me to snap a photo before it flew away

The vast majority of this hie was straight up bushwhacking on an 8-inch wide path, following trail markers on trees.  But at one end of the loop are these guard rails... because everything gets steep and dangerous.  This picture does not do it justice, but maybe this one of Ammon will better illustrate my point:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I decided we were hiking, and Ammon didn't realize until we were already on the hike, so he did the whole shebang in flip-flops.  Hardly even complained about how torn up his feet got.  What a trooper.

All in all, we loved this hike.  Parts of it, like the last mile of our loop, were just straight up torture.  By the end of it, my booty and calves were ready to go on strike, and I can't say that I blame them.  But hey, we made it, and I guess that's what matters, right?

So I'm done talking.  I've gotta go catch up on all of the other cool stuff that comes with blogging:  emails, and reading about you've been up to!  Hope you have a fantabulous day!