Project Life - Week 8 (Feb 20th - 26th)

Still going strong with Project Life!
Week 8 brought us on our yearly snowmobile trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. 90% of the pictures this week are from the trip. The one lonely picture that isn't, is a view from our front window, looking at a half suburban that was Chris & Gary's new project for the week (that is still on going).
- At Latchstring resturant
- In the salt mines making hotdogs for lunch
- View out our front window
- Trent buried in snow (stamp from SC)
- Jack on the snowmobile trail
- We hauled 7 snowmobiles out with us
- Me, on the trail, looking behind me at the sleds following me
- At Lewie's and watching movies in the big cabin

Close up of the awesome stamp

Black Hills Snowmobiling 2012 - Day 3

Snowmobiling - Day 3. The most beautiful day we had out there. The sun was shining a majority of the day and it was gorgeous!

Here is a look at what the trails looked like - not that we actually rode the trails a lot, but they were sure pretty when we did. This is Jack - he's around 75 and he still makes the trips with us and does an awesome job at bringing up the rear. He is our 'sheep herder'. Always making sure all 19 of us are there and someone is not stuck somewhere off by themselves for a least too long.


See - gorgeous day out! Chris and me in front of my snowmobile. See the pelican box Chris attached to my snowmobile with me? Worked like a charm and I'm so glad he figured out how to attach it this year without using a bunch of bungee cords to hold it down. I was able to take my DSLR and 100-400mm lens attached to it in this baby.

Here is a typical meadow on Saturday. People everywhere and a lot of people stuck. I think this is the meadow that we were all stuck in at some point. It was so much fun, but a lot of work!

We made a little place off the trail to have lunch and the boys built a fire. Some of us had hot dogs and some of us sandwiches. Yum! (as you can see, the fire is always big)

Action shot of Chris riding his new (to him) RMK. It's too bad he was having engine problems on this trip. His brand new rebuilt crank went bad, and surprisingly his snowmobile kept pulling itself along.

Another fun meadow. Very typical again. I think half the people in this picture are stuck. The other half are either laughing at them or helping them get unstuck.

Black Hills Snowmobiling 2012 - Day 2

Snowmobiling - Day 2

Our first real look at the meadows south of Trailshead and they looked wonderful! This is usually a meadow that is really packed down, so much so that we can ususally race down this one. What a change this year! Amazing! I think some of them are even actually stuck or thisclose to being so.

Jack fell off his snowmobile and did a 'turtle' for awhile. Funny to watch and I'm sure I've done this before as well.

Dad buried. And apparently having fun

Trent buried up to his waist after helping somebody get unstuck.

On our way to the salt mines. To get there, we have to take logging trails. Dad's snowmobile overheated and stopped the whole lineup for a little while. Here is a look at what was behind me.

The salt mines. We made a fire to make hotdogs today. It's nice to have a hot meal on the trail and this has become a tradition for us (at least to make hot dogs once somewhere out in the middle of nowhere).

After the saltmines we took more logging trails deeper into the middle of nowhere. We were waiting here as a bunch of the front runner went zipping straight up the hill. I think Brock is posing here for us.

And this is a good look at what my new lens can do. Love the bokah in the background as I stole this shot of Maria.

At night, we headed into Lead to Lewie's for supper. A little more than half of us rode in vehicles there, the remaining rode their snowmobiles.

Yay for Lewie's! Dad and me.

Black Hills Snowmobiling 2012 - Day 1

Snowmobiling - Day 1
Initially, we weren't sure we were going to make it to Trailshead Lodge to unload our snowmobiles. The TV in Rapid City was saying that chains were needed to travel past Cheyanne Crossing. Luckily, the roads were pretty well cleared by the time we made it there.
We headed north once we unloaded our sleds.

Here are Cari and Brian at Roughlock Falls.



We headed up to Latchstring (by Spearfish Canyon) for lunch.

Testing out my new rear facing camera on my phone. :)

Then we headed west into Wyoming, to Cement Ridge Lookout. It was an overcast day and the clouds hung just above our heads. From there, we headed over the other edge of Cement Ridge, to play in the snow covered hills on the other side that not many people have the guts to do. Fresh snow!

Here's Chris on the other side. The snow was so deep this year, that we didn't have the chance to do a whole lot of playing without getting stuck while dodging the trees on the mountain sides. Too many elements going on for me to completely boondock on my own. I tend to take others tracks when we go over Cement Ridge, but that can lead to hitting more trees and stumps.

I did have some time to whip out my DSLR. And I caught this beauty of Nate bobbing and weaving through the trees.

We had supper in our cabins and made frozen pizzas on the pizza ovens (that we drag out there with us).

Project Life - Week 7 (Feb 13th - 19th)

Project Life - Week 7
- The dogs had a vet visit
- New cell phones for me and Chris - yay!
- Chris found a rag in my snowmobile gas tank - the reason for all my problems over the past few years
- Weekly recap
- A new kitty showed up this week at our house - we named him Squirt
- Filler card (found on the internet at www.misstina.com)
- A night out at the Dundee Steakhouse
- Some random Dove valentine candy sayings