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Black Hills: Can You Top This?

Reg Spittle 2 Comments

If you are scouring the atlas for adventure and beauty, the Black Hills of South Dakota may end your search. The 4.6-mile Lover’s Leap loop trail climbs nearly 700 feet to this view of Custer State Park and beyond.

Many more trails, lakes, a wildlife drive, and four presidents at Mount Rushmore invite exploration. Bring your hybrid or mountain bike and plenty of pedaling power for the 110-mile Mickelson rail trail.

Pitch your tent or park your RV at one of a seemingly unlimited number of campsites. Our favorite is the Rafter J Bar Resort, with more green space than any park we have visited. In May, we almost had the place to ourselves, with views of forested hills and pristine (except for clusters of deer poop) green fields.

Finally, you will be close enough to explore Badlands National Park, another one of our favorite hiking destinations.

Thunderstruck Weaves A Tale of Intrigue

Reg Spittle 6 Comments


Fact or fiction?

Hawley Harvey Crippen, a doctor, and his wife (disguised as his son) board a ship bound for America in the early 20th century.

Crippen’s journey would become linked to wireless technology developed by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi.

One of them had committed one of the most famous murders in English history.

In Thunderstruck, a work of non-fiction, Erik Larson weaves the tale of two men who would never meet, but would be linked in a way neither could have foreseen. Grisly, suspenseful details emerge as the reader is left wondering for most of the book how the stories of doctor and inventor will merge.

Larson has a gift for making fact seem stranger than fiction. This is my third Erik Larson book. In Devil in the White City, he blends a compelling story about the Chicago World’s Fair with a gruesome murder. Dead Wake tells the story of the Lusitania.