Black Hills 2.0

If you received an email alert for this blog post, be aware that the Feed Burner mail service that I used previously is being discontinued. If you would like to make sure you are notified of any future posts, please sign up on the right side of this page for my new service with Follow.It. More information can be found in the previous blog post. Thanks a bunch!

Like many people, when the word "pandemic" started popping up, I thought life might change for oh...maybe a month or two tops. Never did I imagine that a year and a half later my travel plans would be formed based on the ability to be outside or stay social distant. But that is exactly what pushed us to plan a return trip to the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota.

A couple of weeks after our 2nd Covid vaccine in March I was ready to go SOMEWHERE. When I noticed on the AirBnB website that the Black Hills apartment we rented last year was available for the same time this year it seemed like a sign. The fact that the reservation could be cancelled up until the day before made it easy to commit without really being committed. Five nights in late September...booked.

A few days later I started thinking about how much driving we did last year. The AirBnB apartment was on the far south side of the Black Hills, over an hour away from some of the northern sights we visited. A little more online searching and I found an interesting place to stay in Spearfish, SD. Two more nights...booked.

Visiting the Badlands again was not something I was even thinking about but for some reason ever now and then I would check availability at the Cedar Pass Lodge where we stayed last year. It was a good thing that we weren't set on going because they were totally booked...until one day in late August. There must have been a cancellation because one solitary cabin was available the the night before our trip was to begin. I mentioned it to Bob and his reply was "book it fast!" One more night booked.

I will confess that the Black Hills wasn't my first choice for travel, especially since we were just there a year ago. I will also confess that early in the summer when Covid rates were at their lowest I booked an Alaska cruise...also for September. The cruise was only open to fully-vaccinated passengers and life onboard would be totally normal...no testing, no masking, no social distancing. But then along came Delta and week by week the cruise protocols started changing. And breakthrough cases started happening. And I got nervous. And that was the end of our cruise plans.

And that, my friends, is the backstory to this year's travels to the Black Hills exactly one year after our 2020 trip to the same location. Although we are home now, lets pretend that the coming blog posts were done live. So come along as we get ready to hit the road to the land of the bison, stone heads on a mountain and hundreds of prairie dogs.