We're all enjoying the wonderful quiet of the 'week after', especially the empty roads and the crowd-less stores.
Summer is almost coming to an end already and the weather has been somewhat of a roller-coaster. We've gone from a very hot 92 to a very chilly 43 in a single day, than back up again to the low 80's, to be followed once again by very windy and freezing mid 40's. Brrrr!!

As you can see in these pictures that I made while golfing 'down the hill' at Elkhorn Ridge, there seems to hang a hazy fog over the hills of the Black Hills in the distance.

 

Actually, it's smoke from the wildfires in Oregon and Washington! 
It makes for a weird, gloomy, almost orange glow to the skies around where we are in Lead.
Amazing that we can see the smoke from fires that are halfway across the country!

As I said, we were golfing at Elkhorn Ridge because 'our' course was closed for to a tournament. 

Too bad that it turned out to be not such a very good experience. We were quoted a much lower price on the phone, when we arranged the tee time, than that we had to pay on arrival. We were offered a bucket of balls to make up for it but they really could have handled it a little more professional than they did. 

The course didn't impress us either plus there was a constant highway noise. Not our cup of tea! Oh well, ...

Our weekly 'weekend outing' this time was to visit the Open Mine Pit and Visitor Center in Lead.

Lead has been called the richest 100 square miles on Earth. Over a period of 126 years, from the mid-1870s until 2001, miners pulled more than 41 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver from the Homestake Mine, the largest mine in the western hemisphere.
In December 2001, however, Homestake mined its final ore and left behind more than 370 miles of tunnels from the surface to the 8,000-foot level.

Today, those caverns are the site of the Sanford Underground Research facility,  who is doing world-leading research that seeks to understand the riches of the universe and is been getting attention for its particle physics experiments on dark matter and neutrinos.

The suspended model on the left, gives perspective on how extensive the mine actually is, with respect to the monstrous pit right out the window.

It's a beautiful, brand new visitor center, and we enjoyed learning more about what was behind this 'pit' we drive by every time we go through Lead.

OK, what's next ...

Doesn't the next picture remind you of something? I think it looks a lot like the house we build in Skyforest!

It's actually one of the projects James is working on. He's replacing all the windows at the front.

           

I hate it when he has to work on those scaffolding. One wrong move and down you go .... and ... no insurance ....

And here's some pictures of another job, better known as the 'caboose' project, because it is a .... caboose:

It has been worked on by someone before who made a big mess of it so it's now up to Stuen Construction (the co. James works for) to try to right the wrongs and finish the rest ...



The roof got a little 'airy' as you can see ..

 

So they're working on putting another one on ....

    

Still a lot to do, but kind of fun, working on a train car!         

Here's how he sometimes shows up after a day of hard work!

Most of the time he's covered in sawdust but, not so easy to see, this time he's covered in concrete! 
He had to cut in a 8" thick concrete wall to create a window.

As usual, even in his spare time he's always put-zing around, working on various projects around the 'house'.
We still have a long list of 'improvements' we're working on.
These two are from a while ago. First up is a booster antenna for the Internet connection, that we set up in May.

      

Aimed right at the Lodge we're able to just get theirs (recreational springs'). 

Since than we've moved it on top of the roof because we still had interference from any vehicle that was parked in our side-line.

Next is our phone booster, that we're using already since Lajitas, but that we have improved a little by attaching it in a better way; with real clamps instead of bungee cords.
It is attached (quite cleverly, honey) to an extension paint rod (as is the Internet one), so we can adjust it to whatever height we want.

At the moment we're working on adding awnings to the two slides. 
It's going to be nice! I hope. I'll keep you updated!

Nothing much else going on at the moment (and isn't that nice) but for the fact that we had our 15th anniversary on the 19th.
FIF-teen years! Is that even possible?
We celebrated with a nice dinner at the Cheyenne Crossing Stage Stop just down the street from us.

It's a funky little old restaurant with simple but good food, served by very friendly people in a very relaxed and cozy atmosphere.

A little older but still a darn cute couple don't you think?

My colleague Emily baked us a Snicker-doodle Cheesecake. Delicious!!

And we went for a nice celebratory round of golf. Of course!
If only I could say that in those 15 years we'd gotten much better at it ......

James showing off his 'moves' ....

In an other 15 years we'll be ... how old ... eeks! Never mind!
Let's just walk peacefully into the sunset ....