South Dakota Recap
I thought it would be time to recap from our recent trip to South Dakota. This was an interesting trip as both Danith and I traveled there as kids, in fact we were both there the same summer in 1985!
The trip started nice and early, we were out the door and on the road by 8am. We reached Des Smet around noon. Des Smet, SD was once the home of Laura Ingalls and her family. They have a old classroom, the surveyer’s house they lived in and the gravesite for Pa. 1985 Picture. 2012 Picture. More pictures below in gallery.
We then drove towards the capitol of SD Pierre. On the way we drove up to the Oahe dam. While looking for the spot to park we drove by the parking lot. As we are turning around Brandon says “Why is the dam parking lot up there!”. Danith and I had a long laugh which eventually Brandon realized the other meaning of what he said. This area was very scenic and I got a good picture of Danith and the kids on the bluff.
We arrived in Pierre at about 5pm, and drove to the capitol. It was a very nice capitol building and it was nice and deserted on a Friday evening. Capping off the night we had a craptastic dinner at what passes for Mexican in Pierre.
The next day we drove quickly to Wall, SD to visit the biggest tourist trap in the world, Wall Drug! Lots of memories for me here and I ensured to take lots of pictures of the boys here. I got to relive riding the horse and you can see my 10 year old self in the gallery below, along with my kids on the same horse.
From Wall Drug we drove directly toward the Mount Rushmore area. Along the way we hit Bear Country and got to see lots and lots of Bears along with an Elk or two. The kids really enjoyed having the animals walk right in front of the cars and thought the guy in front of us was going to be eaten since his window was always open.
That same evening we hit Mount Rushmore and enjoyed a few of the nice walking paths around the area. There was a nice history lesson on how it was built, and I even got a post card that shows the lesser known fact that Jefferson was originally on the other side of Washington.
The next day we hit a Crystal Mine which was not all that exciting. They had a zip line but it was broken much to Brandon’s disappointment. We also visited a gold mine which was a much better tour. A lot of good history and a great tour guide makes a huge difference.
We then hit the Crazy horse area. This was very interesting and the kids loved the movie about building this. It is amazing how it started with just one person, then he had lots of children and they have been working on it since his death. I hope it gets finished some day!
Finally we had lunch in Custer, SD. In Custer we were going to go to the Flintstone park but Brandon was not in the mood so we did not want to spend the money. Instead we started the drive home. Along the way we stopped for a round of mini-golf in Rapid City where the boys got to dress up as pirates.
The last night we stopped at Brandon, SD at a waterpark. The kids got to swim and play for a few hours before we drove the rest of the way home. Exhausting for a vacation!
BTW how do you enjoy the new look.. It now works on tablets and phones! Rick out.
TV Wall Mounting Woes
About 6 months ago I purchased a TV wall mount for our 42″ bedroom TV with the intention to install it the next weekend. As things usually go, that weekend we were busy, then the next, etc. Finally this weekend I thought enough is enough and I took my tools to the bedroom to get it installed.
After cracking open the mounting kit I was surprised that the kit came with it’s own stud finder plus a nice drilling template, +1. I quickly located the wall stud which was conveniently in the center of the room using the cheap stud finder, marked the holes to drill and grabbed my drill.
As I drilled the first hole I noticed that the stud finder was not like my “real” stud finder. This one just has a single light and it is on or off, no middle. So what I thought was the center of the stud was the left edge. No problem I just moved 1/4 inch to the right and drilled the two holes.
The main mounting bracket was easy enough to install at this point, two large bolts. Ah metric, so down to the garage I went to get my metric bits. After finding the right bit, installed the lag screws and the main mount was in place.
The trouble began with the mounting plate that attaches to the TV. Some genus decided to mix metric and imperial screws. Not only that, for the extension arms you have to use two different bolts and nuts, the bolt is imperial, the supplied nuts are metric, WTH?!? After swapping bits the TV mount is in place.
As I am hanging the TV onto the mount I notice that cable went out. (I had the TV on, with my TiVo playing something for background noise). However I was time shifting and playing something 15-20 minutes in the past. So at somepoint I lost cable TV as I was installing things, not when I was hanging the TV.
The prime suspect was when I just missed the stud with the drill bit. I thought to myself that that is pretty unlikely as who in their right mind would string a coax wire up a stud on the upper floor. On top of that the screw hole was about 5 feet up.
So I replaced the coax connectors, no luck. Dang, the drill somehow hit the cable, which was wired completely crazy. As my luck would have it, this is only one of the two rooms that I did not wire, so I had no idea where the cable was running, but again only an idiot would run wires in places where people would likely hang pictures or drill holes. (Of course I did miss the stud, so who is the idiot now).
I was planning on placing a outlet box behind the TV to run wires so I cut a hole in the wall for it. Reaching into the outlet-sized hole I could feel that the exact place the drill bit came out the side of the stud was a wire bracket, with the cable TV wire. The drill bit actually went into the wire bracket. Anyplace else the wire would have moved out of the way and not gotten hit by the drill.
The hole for the future outlet was not big enough for me to remove the wire bracket and fix the wire, so another hole had to be cut. Huzzah, after cutting and splicing the cable everything works.
Almost complete at this point.. The TV is hung, the holes are cut to string the cables, only remaining item is to get long enough cables.. Of course the ones I have are about 2 feet too short.
I love it when a plan, finally, comes together!
