Welcome to Narnia

We arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota on Saturday, August 6th around mid afternoon.  First, in case you've never been to South Dakota, it is BEAUTIFUL.  The place we stayed was like Fairytale Land.  I am so sad that I did not capture our first moment riding onto the property...my cell phone was dead and my big camera was stowed away.   I'm going to do my best to recreate this moment for you with pictures taken later on because it was pretty incredible...

We rode up this long dirt road and turned into the driveway, which is more like a road..

 



And these four majestic horses were standing around and ON the driveway, with the main house framed in the background on the right side and a white fence and gorgeous valley in the background on the left side. 

The horses didn't have a care in the world that 2 very loud motorcycles were heading towards them.  They just looked up at us and then went about their business.  We literally had to ride around them to get by.  It was so surreal to see these giant serene creatures towering over the big black rumbling Harley's.  It was kind of magical.  If only I had a picture!

I thought I might get another opportunity to photograph this crazy scene during the next few days, but the horses went off to a horse clinic in Colorado early the next morning and didn't return home until after we left. 

This Fairytale Land is where Derek's boss and his wife live.  And they were gracious enough to let us stay there for 5 nights.  They have an absolutely stunning property spanning 50 acres.  It includes a main house, a guest house (also known as the man cave--this is where we stayed), a second man cave, a huge barn, a gazebo and a pond, among other things. They treated us to a delicious home cooked meal our first night and then took off early the next morning for the remainder of the week.



I told Derek this place is Fairytale Land and he equated it to Narnia.  I couldn't agree more.  If they didn't have such extreme winter in South Dakota, I might be tempted to move to such a beautiful place. 

We spent time exploring the property at different times of the day.

One evening we saw 4 deer in the field of the property next door.  As we approached 2 of them of made a run for it, hopping over the fence right in front of us.  Sooo cool!

This sunset was stunning.

Special thanks to Derek and Cari and Pat and Marlene for making our stay in South Dakota so fabulous!

I'll leave you with a few more pictures from Narnia...