The old house sold in less than two days. It’s fine and I’m glad that it wasn’t a big hassle. If we had more money we’d have bought it ourselves. It could’ve been a nice home base for the kids with their town and school activities. It was such a great house for being so close to things. The high school, the grade schools, the churches, the stores.

Our mountain climb began around 8:45. For whatever reason it didn’t quite fit my mental image of what mountains are supposed to look like up close, or how big they are supposed to appear in the distance. It was Black Elk Peak which is the highest point in South Dakota and also east of the Rockies until you get to somewhere in Spain.

The kids timed everything on their running watches. The rounded split times for the miles going up were 24, 27, 30, and 36 minutes. It was only supposed to be 3.5ish miles up so I’m not sure where the extra half mile came from. Going down was more like 28, 28, 28, 10. At the top we sat in a shaded ledge, ate our snacks, and took in the view.