About a month ago, my husband and I decided to go to the Black Hills. We had our trip planned after our youngest son left to go back to college. Planning the next time, we see our kids when they are far away just helps me cope with the “missing” feeling.

The week before we left for our trip, I had decided at the last minute that it would be a good time to paint my whole living room, dining area, and kitchen. Just a little paint to freshen everything up before harvest and before all the holidays. I left with my grandson to go get some food and more paint, because at the last minute, I decided to spruce it up with another color for the kitchen dining area. I left my husband, my son, and his wife to paint while I was gone.

When I returned, my daughter-in-law met me at the door and from the look on her face, I knew something had happened. She informed me that my husband had fallen off the ladder and she was worried about him as he had a good impact with his side against the counter, which knocked the wind out of him. Although I was worried about him, I also was hit with the realization that we are at the age where we are and can be considered a “Fall Risk” now, obviously he went on to prove it.

There is not too much that will slow my husband down, but I could tell that he was hurting. We iced his ribs and he took Ibuprofen so needless to say, he was no longer any help with finishing up with the painting project. He rested and all abled bodies finished painting by mid to late afternoon and was all cleaned up, except for re-covering outlets and light switches, which I do after the paint cures a bit.

The next few days he was sore but refused to see a doctor, as with ribs there is nothing they can really do for him, as my husband is his own medical expert. Too many times, when he has gotten hurt, and I thought maybe he should be seen or maybe he needed sutures, he only takes his own advice which he suffers through and eventually he does get better, maybe deformed but whatever. What can I say. Just kidding of course.

A few days of resting and taking it easy as much as the man allows himself to, he was doing better until the night before we left for our Black Hills trip, he coughed. Well, that cough put him back out of commission. It must have shifted a rib out of place. He could hardly take a deep breath in or out. He was miserable. He couldn’t sleep in the bed and hardly slept at all prior to us leaving the next morning.

With him exhausted from sleepless nights and pain, I was the designated driver, which is fine as long as he is asleep and does not wake while I am following another vehicle, as that always turns into me supposedly following too close, this seems to be his biggest criticism of my driving, not saying there are not others.

Once in a while, I would pull over and let him know where we were on our trip and if he wanted to get out to stretch a bit, like stopping at Lake McConaughy, which always brings back so many memories for us as we always like to know how low or how high the water is and depending on the level we will reminisce about the summers we were there with the boys and the great memories we had no matter what the lake level was at. At this stop, we decided he was doing so good just riding, that we would venture onto Toadstool Park, which was a little out of our way, but not too far.

When we made it to Toadstool Park, we got out again, we stretched. We walked a bit, but he was not able to walk the trails. The scenery was beautiful and well worth the side trip to see, but I am sure we missed something from not being able to enjoy the trails, so that will be done another day.

I resumed my position as the racecar driver, I mean driver, and he fell back to sleep. The road that Google took us on was a dirt road with the speed limit of 65 miles per hour, I am not kidding, that was what the signs said. We left Nebraska and were welcomed into South Dakota taking Highway 71. We crossed over to CanAm Hwy and found ourselves in Wyoming for a while. I remember sometime in there, hearing a “pop”, but nothing to be seen in the rearview mirror. We just kept going, as we were getting closer to Lead, SD, I noticed my “low tire” light came on. We stopped and walked around but nothing looked suspiciously low, so we kept going. We checked into our sweet little cabin located in Terry’s Peak area. We decided it was time to eat, so we headed out and decided to stop at Lewie’s Burgers & Brews, which I highly recommend. The atmosphere and the food were so good, anyway, when we parked, I noticed the passenger rear tire was obviously low at this point. We thought we would go in and eat and then worry about it when we came out. When we got inside, we were waiting to be seated and out of the blue with strangers amongst us, someone hollers out my name. I looked over and there at a table close to the door was my niece’s husband and his parents waving us over. We were invited to eat with them. It was the craziest thing. To our relief, he also had an air compressor, so he was able to fill up our tire to ensure that we were able to return to our rental home without trouble.

The next morning, when we woke, the tire was as flat as can be. My husband, fractured rib/bruised rib whatever it may be, had no choice but to change a tire. We were glad to know that our spare tire was the same size as our regular tire, so once we got that changed, we were ready for our next adventure of the day. Prior to an injured husband, we had rented a side-by-side or a Razr for the day.  We got to the rental place and got fitted for our helmets, which the idea of wearing a helmet that someone else had worn, made me a bit urpy. Luckily, we only had to wear it until we pulled out of their lot and then it went away.

We had such great weather as it was sunny with a cool breeze, especially in the hills, out of nowhere we would feel a gentle breeze as we went on trails, We were instructed to go only on the “orange” trails as the “red” trails were the same size, but were a bit more adventurous (rocky and rougher terrain) as we found, we were also informed that if we were to go on them we would be fined, as they had a GPS tracker on us. We obliged, as we did not want to be fined, nor could my husband’s ribs take too much roughness. The trails were nice and scenic that we followed, we stopped for mountain cows here and there as we drove around. Many trails that were on our path, we could have taken with my Toyota 4-Runner, as we have done that on another trip, which we had about 30 to 50 elk run right in front of us, we could hear their stampede as our windows were down and because the car was so quiet, we did not scare them. It was amazing. On this trail day though, there were not any wildlife encounters except for some deer. The side-by-side was so loud that we could not even visit with each other as we drove, so very unlikely that we would sneak up on anything out there in the trees and hills.  We would stop here and there, just to walk around and to take in nature and the beauty around us. The air was so fresh.

As we were heading back into Spearfish to return our side-by-side for the day, my husband ran over a pile of fresh poo, that poo splatted right up onto me. Needless to say, I was not impressed. The poo splattered onto my cheek, my hand, my shirt, and in my hair.  My initial reaction was to be upset with him, as if I was going to end this day without washing my hair, so very unlikely. There was so much dust that I knew that was definitely not a question, also I had to put that dirty helmet on my head even if it was only momentarily, but still, yuck. I luckily had my sweatshirt with me, so right there, I took off my soiled shirt and used it to wipe off my seatbelt, my hand and whatever else got hit with sh*t and was able to put on my “kind of clean” sweatshirt on.

The next morning, we drove into Deadwood and found a tire shop that was willing to fix our tire on a Saturday morning, which we were able to go less than a block away for some very good breakfast. Our son was able to join us later and we ventured out to see a working mine and then we drove to Sylvan Lake which we did walk around then ventured up Needles Hwy to the Spires and then the Wildlife loop in Custer State Park, which we got to see pronghorns, other wildlife, and some pretty cool buffalo that got too close in my opinion, but we did not pet them.

This trip was like a roller coaster for me. It had some ups and downs, but overall, it was so good and so worth it. My husband is doing so much better and was so thankful that he was able to enjoy his time even through the pain and the unexpected.

Although, we may have everything planned out and then the unexpected happens, fractured ribs, having a low tire from something we picked up on the road, to seeing family in an unexpected place where they were able to help us out momentarily. Then having a great day outdoors and seeing beauty to having a little cow poo in our face. It is all good. Overall, we just need to remember to roll with the punches and to see the good in every situation.

We can plan for everything, but that does not mean that everything wont change.