Just Plain Crazy!

Well, the students have been here for one full week and so far so good. Tonight was leftover night and for the most part students were excited about that…I’m going to say that is a good sign that they are enjoying our cooking. So yeah for us!

Today also marked the day that we got to climb to the top of Crazy Horse. Woot woot! Every year Crazy Horse is opened for what is known as the Volksmarch. This is a 6.2 mile roundtrip hike to the top of Crazy Horse’s arm (see picture) and back down. This only happens one day out of the whole year and we happened to be here for it (it is only about an hour drive from us) this year. Work first began on the Crazy Horse monument in 1948 and most likely it will not be finished in my lifetime….so yeah, how could we pass up this opportunity. So the kitchen shut down for lunch and we all (well almost 30 of us) took part in the Volksmarch. Pretty amazing! And aren’t you jealous?!?! =)

About half way to the top

The dark side of the moon (AKA the left side of his face)

Pretty amazing being this close...you know what I was thinking? Can you just imagine carving out that nostril?!

In other news, I made a big mistake today. Well, it isn’t huge or anything like that, but I am so annoyed at myself for it. Remember how I told you I was struggling with the schedule and how finding time to take a break wasn’t necessarily coming easy? Well, I was supposed to have breakfast off this morning…but I didn’t realize it until we were 5 minutes from being finished with breakfast. Blast! So much for taking advantage of my precious time off. Although all was not lost as I traveled into Rapid City on Thursday (I had the entire day off) and ate lunch at Qdoba (mmmmmm burrito) and then headed for Borders. I haven’t stepped into a Borders since….well, I don’t exactly remember when that was actually, so yeah, I was excited. I haven’t been able to read anything just for pure enjoyment since Christmas break and was more than looking forward to getting my hands on a few new books. Well, I walked out of there with 3 books for me and 2 for Neile! I am about half way through one as it has rained most of yesterday and I had some free time in the afternoon and evening.

Well, my quads and the top of my calves are tight and I finally got some sun today (no worries, no sunburn…although Neile did get a bit pink) so I am feeling good and am looking forward to a low key evening. There was some talk of watching North by Northwest this evening, as some of it was filmed in these parts so we’ll see.

I am missing home, especially my niece and nephew (there were a lot of kids on the hike and Neile and I kept imagining doing the hike with the two crazies), but I am also learning more and more how to just enjoy being here – afterall, there are only just over 9 weeks remaining in our adventure of Science Station cooks. Still no news on what is next, but we hope to get some work on that in the coming week.