The Myth & The Majesty

Quick! Think of the last time you visited a new place. What caught you off guard that the locals didn't seem to even notice? The pretentiousness of my title aside, this is incredibly common. Practically a requirement, really. If everything about where you live strikes you as weird, odds are good you'll do what you can to not live there anymore. In the meantime, the rest of it slowly becomes an everyday thing. Living in an area where tourism is a major economic driver means that there are an awful lot of things around that make other folks pull over ... that I might not even see. I might have visited them, know where they are, how to find them, how long it took to build them -- but unless you ask me questions, I doubt they'll come up. (Unless I'm telling a story about people not being able to find Mount Rushmore .) With that in mind, let's talk about some of the things we don't necessarily notice around here. 1. Bison. Don't get me wrong -- the

I'm working on a couple of trail write-ups (and related Black Hills paraphernalia) but I got distracted by YouTube. You see, the parental units were just in Florida for a conference (apparently that's the place for conferences this year) and when they got back ... they just had to tell me about the safety video from their flight. Hey, if you don't just pay attention but remember it later on, it did its job, right?  

Well! Yes. It's been seven weeks since I last turned up here. Possibly the longest continuous absence I've had in .... ever. I wish there was a compelling reason for it, but it has mostly just been that I haven't felt like writing. Actually, in and of itself, that's more compelling than you may realize. I haven't just not written here. I've also not journaled. I've not sent long email stories. I've not sent cards to friends. This is the longest period of not-writing I've had that I can remember. I don't like it. And while I can certainly explain some of it with the fact that I'm having a somewhat ridiculous year, I figure that will be more relevant to additional posts. Maybe I can get myself back on the blog wagon and get to it. For now, a video ... because it's fun. And stuck in my head.