What a trip!

The Colonel's wife chats up Eric at Fort Laramie.

My travels with Eric this summer have been so interesting to me. I've seen so many new things and new places -- I don't know where to begin to describe them. Red Rocks Ampitheater was stuning, and the Phil and Friends show rocked.

This morning we left Colorado, but stopped at a favorite restaurant of Eric's in Longmont, CO. Lucille's is a cajun restaurant, and was right up there with beloved Morning Glory in Ashland, OR. Yum.

We drove across a corner of Wyoming and into South Dakota. In Wyoming we stopped at Fort Laramie, which was very interesting. It's a National Historic Site, having been a calvary and infantry fort, a Pony Express stop, the last civilized outpost on the Oregon Trail, and host to the infantry involved in the Indian wars. It was totally fascinating, and I bought two books about the Oregon Trail.

Now we're at The Bavarian Inn in South Dakota, and I want to explain the weirdness of it all but I'm soooooo tired. I can't do it justice.

I waited in the car while Eric checked in, and overheard the conversation of three men on a terrace above me. They were commerical pilots, working for the same company, and their conversation was so strange to me. In brief, foreigners and blacks get all of the good jobs and opportunities, and yet constantly complain about thier situations. "They roll out the red carpet for foreigners, but I never got a red carpet, I only got grief". "All blacks do is complain, but if they wanted to work they could, look at Peterson, he got the job I wanted and he hasn't worked half as long or hard".

"I never had any help.'

"I never had any advantages."

(Uh... except being born a white man?)

So... we check in, and then head out into town in search of food. Every business we've walked into has been staffed by blonde, blue-eyed, Russians. For reals.

A large, blonde, rosy cheeked family that was dining next to us had a conversation about "foreigners".

We stopped for ice cream, where we were helped by two blonde Russian women who didn't speak enough English to man a ice cream counter. Where are the Russians coming from? It's kind of creepy.

The office staff here in this little bit of Bavaria is NOT Russian, but Eric says there's an Israeli flag in the office. I know they're not Jews. There are no Jews in South Dakota. And the only people flying Israeli flags who aren't Jewish are concervative Christian right-types, who support Israel only because they long for the end times and death of 50% of all Jews (and the conversion of the rest).

Welcome to South Dakota!

We're heading out to Custer State Park tomorrow, and camping.