Road trip!

Mom and I (Clay) took a road trip to South Dakota for a very special reason.  But before I reveal what for, here are some images we took along the way.  By the way, the entire trip we were racing against time and so some of the pictures you see were taken from the car or very brief must-stop-get-the-shot type photos.  A good photographic challenge!

Colorado Rockies, where you can still find snow in May.

And 23 degree temps...!

 Then 15 mins later beautiful blue skys.

A quick drive through a little mountain town.

I had never been to Nebraska...I can see why.

But this was really cool!  Just driving along, farm land as far as the eye can see and then this beautiful piece of art.  I would have like to have meet the artist behind this piece.

These pieces were made entirely out of car parts.

Inside the fenced area lie the remains and remnants of nearly 300 native men, woman, and children of the battle at Wounded Knee.

When mom was (and still is) an activist/missionary/gypsy she used to live in this cabin...by herself!

On the rez, things are different.

Sioux Falls on the left, amazing people on the right.

The cats conducting their routine inspection of visitors.

And this is the reason we went to South Dakota.  Her name is Kamora.  Mom is now fostering the little baby girl being handed to her.  The family fostering Kamora before mom have fostered over 100 children for varies periods of time.  They are amazing human beings!  The little cute red head girl is another one of their foster kids.

Out of the hundred or so children this family has fostered, this young boy had the blessing of being the only child adopted by the family.  The family also has 4 children of there own grown and out of the house.

One of the reasons we were racing against time was Laura was flying up to Rapid City to ride with us back to San Diego and we were in Sioux Falls which is on the other side of the state.  Here's Laura walking with the baby at my Godfathers ranch in Montana which is up against the Yellowstone mountains.

Laura and I have decided we are getting Australian sheep dog.

All that land down there to the first hill on the other side of the valley is a just a fraction of their ranch.

As we began our drive through Yellowstone we were pleasantly surprised to see buffalo roaming free.

This one was so close to the road that when Laura took the picture she could have literally reached out and touched it.  I was driving and Laura was so afraid of the buffalo that she almost didn't get the shot before jumping over onto my lap.

Little baby Kamora!

Been there, done that!

This is where I should say something like, "Afternoon traffic in Yellowstone!" But I will spare you the cliche quote and say something like, "it beats dodging trees, streams, and cliffs."

We arrived home late into the night.