South Dakota at Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

Wishing all a blessed, safe and...

Happy Thanksgiving!

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In the sleepless wee hours of the morning, for the second time I serendipitously stumbled upon exciting news of the famous South Dakota float to be honored in the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. This preview and news was found at Black Hills Travel Blog. Be sure to see it...a grand representation of Mount Rushmore...and more! Click the 'Sneak Peek' link below...

Sneak Peek at South Dakota’s Famous Float

blackhillstravelblog.com

The Today Show on NBC interviewed John Piper, Vice President at Macy's, from inside Macy's Parade Studio. Piper gave a sneak Peek at South Dakota's new float...

...and CLICK here to see the Float Design while under construction (also found at Black Hills Travel Blog)!

· FOURTH Birthday at Mountains To Prairies B&B

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Rich and Wanda are the perfect example of a prime reason for having a Bed and Breakfast...forming friendships! Wanda's birthday has been celebrated four times at Mountains To Prairies. This year we surprised her with a blueberry muffin birthday 'cake', baked in a small bundt pan, and lit with three long candles... 1) remembering the past, 2) looking forward to the future, and 3) enjoying the beauty of today. And what a beautiful day in early November it is, with a sunny temperature of 75 cozy degrees!! Rich and Wanda began capturing the best of the warm weather even before breakfast, by taking a walk along the Mickelson Trail.

Click on the first pic to go to the album of three.

(Each photo has a caption.)

Fourth Birthday at Mountains To Prairies B&B

· SPUDZ - Bearly Potato

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Two potato, three potato, four potato, five ...nope, just ONE. Guests of two nights were on their way to Arizona to present this zany 'bearly potato' to a relative. They dug it up in their own North Dakota potato patch. We just called it Spud, but SPUDZ is more like it! - Guests Diane and Alvin are long-time neighbors of my brother, sister and brother-in-law who live on the farm where I grew up ...and where the pictured apples grew! - ZANY a.k.a. peculiar, unconventional, strange, bizarre, funny, quirky, kooky, oddball.

Click on the first pic to go to the album of six.

(Each photo has a caption.)

Spectacular Animal Spud!

· ANTIQUES - Gifts for Newlyweds

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Mike and Jessi had been married all of 30 hours before arriving at Mountains To Prairies B&B for a three-night HONEYMOON stay. Much of their 'wedding money' was exchanged for antiques at Smiling Bear Antiques Shop, in-house with the B&B. They made careful and thoughtful selections. Many of the items they chose may one day very well be passed on to their grandchildren ...such as an antique oak Gingerbread Clock. They purchased the early 1900's oak-framed Shaving Mirror shown in the first photo, in which their happy image is nostalgically framed.

Click on the first pic to go to the album of eleven.

(Each photo has a caption.)

ANTIQUES - Wedding Gifts for Newlyweds

· What it is Like to Run a Bed and Breakfast

One of our recent guests, Linda LaRoque, asked me, "What is it like to run a Bed and Breakfast?" My answer is below, in green. Linda L. is an author of western contemporary and time travel romance novels! Click on Linda LaRoque's Musings, her blog, where she posted my answer...

What is it like to run a B&B? Without giving it a great deal of thought, I might say that it is much like dancing. Sam and I are partners in this ongoing dance, and when the harmonious music is heard by both of us, the dance is heavenly! However, occasionally one of us may step on the other's toes, or someone may bump into us...and so we take the necessary time - and steps - to readjust to the rhythm. Periodically, the music changes to a different tempo, which can be a bit jarring even when expected, and so again we readjust. More happiness, excitement, variety and adventure are added to the dance when younger dance students (granddaughters) join us. And so it goes—The broad and colorful spectrum of music moving us 'this way and that way' creates a fluid niche in time devoid of boredom. The dance hall fills up seasonally with visiting dancers, who add to the meaning and purpose of our dance, and who generally orchestrate the movements. In short...running a B&B is more like dancing than running.

Linda Brown, Innkeeper, Mountains To Prairies Bed and Breakfast

· Fall Colors Grand Finale!

Sam rose early with the sun this morning to take a picture of the trees along the East Main side of Mountains To Prairies Bed and Breakfast here in Hill City, South Dakota. For two days the wind has intermittently been blowing fiercely. The chokecherry bushes outside our kitchen window were stripped of their colorful leaves yesterday. A few flecks of snow are blowing by the window now. Sam's beautiful picture presents the GRAND FINALE of the fall colors!...around our house anyway. Click on

· 2010 Autumn at Mountains To Prairies B&B

to view the whole album (...click on the first small pic and then next and next.) But first, here are two of the previous views around the house...

BUTTERFLY OVER THE LILAC BUSH

(Corner of East Main and Walnut Ave)

BOARDWALK VIEW

· Pony Express Site and Bull Bison

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This historic location on the outskirts of Pringle along Highway 385 between Custer and Hot Springs represents a busy fragment of the PONY EXPRESS way back when...now collects interesting artifacts (antiques) of that timeframe. Sunday, we were driving south from Hill City, South Dakota to Hot Springs, looking for lingering patches of fall colors...found a lot of rust here! :)

Pony Express Route

4 new photos

Mountains To Prairies Bed and Breakfast on facebook

After studying the curious collection of artifacts from the Pony Express days, we toured Wind Cave National Park (enroute to Hot Springs) where we paused to watch a herd of BISON, many of them bulls as shown in this video clip. Click on 'Bulky Bull Bison' to go to the video...

Bulky Bull Bison

Length:0:41

We also made a short video of a huge COYOTE "stalking his pantry for winter" (Sam says)...sneaking up on some prairie dogs. This video is also on Mountains To Prairies Bed and Breakfast facebook page.

When we finally made it to Hot Springs, we drove and gawked all the way through town to our destination, the Dairy Queen, for a chocolate dipped ice cream cone...and then we turned around to head back home. We did note that Hot Springs has quite a few staircases to heaven (...you have to go see!)

On the way home we looked for a place to take a short hike before darkness settled in...found a turnoff along the Mickelson Trail. But rather than walking on the trail this time, we hiked a skinny winding road off into the woods. Back in there, we climbed onto a plateau which had an old hand-dug ditch around it on three sides and a rocky dropoff on the other end. We puzzled over it for awhile, until Sam came up with the thought that it might have been where a bridge had originally been intended for the railroad, but for some reason they didn't like the location and so moved on down the hill...and so the story concludes that this is why the Mickelson Trail (trails from rails) is down the hill from that location. Go figure.