he he. well, that's what you get when you swipe a photo off your sister-in-law's facebook page. and that's what you get for never busting out your own camera. where is rani when you need her?

anyway. i spent a great last weekend in the black hills with my friend sara, her two girls, my husband's brother and his wife (i'd rather call her my friend) and my husband and our boys. the mission was for us girls to ride the 109 mile mickelson trail while the men hung out with the kids and gave us taxi service. then after we were done riding each day, we'd switch off. we stayed out at palmer gulch resort so there was plenty of fun stuff to do for the kids. they had a BLAST and the dirt to prove it.

so. the bike ride wasn't what i expected. i thought the mickelson trail was this flat trail that wound its way through the beautiful hills. it's even marked as 'easy' in the hiking guide. we started out in deadwood with a 13 mile uphill climb that did not ever decline. it took us an hour and a half to get to the top...that's when i began to question things a bit. however, that big climb was soon forgotten as we got to go down for about 17 miles through some of the prettiest country i've ever seen. my teeth got sunburned because i smiled the whole way. then we hit another 7 mile incline, where we all stopped talking and oohing and ahhing over the scenery and just pedaled. that last 10 miles or so were pretty much a descend into hill city, very pretty and we hit the town on an "up."our taxi service didn't have cell service and were too busy swimming anyway, so we ended up hitching a ride up the busy highway to palmer gulch from a one-legged man with a van and a bike rack. we payed him $10 each. and no, i'm not kidding.

we took my husband and his brother to the start of the decline and they rode into hill city that night. they had a great ride and were pretty impressed with what we'd just done--and they even got to skip the first 13.

the next day we knew we were in for a 10 mile up right away, and were looking forward to a nice easy flat for 50 miles after that. the first 20 or so were probably my favorite part of the whole ride. absolutly gorgeous from crazy horse to custer...but after that, we were rattlesnake bait. everything got ugly and deserty and HOT and windy, it was 98 degrees and we were chasing the fast-moving clouds for shade. we never did catch them.

but, we did finish. we were all worn out and hungry, but as soon as we located some licorice and chips, we forgot all about the hills and the heat and the wind. there were too many great parts to think about. truly, it was so worth it. if i had to do it over, i'd probably skip that part from custer to edgemont. but if you go with kids or you're looking for just a joy ride, ride from dumont to mystic or rochford and you will LOVE it. it's really absolutely gorgeous out there.