What the hail, part 2........

8:25 am - Monday - July 6th - Keystone, SD - 58° F, 90% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north......heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 79° F.  Rain most of the night.  On this day in 2013 we were driving the Kananaskis Highway in Alberta, Canada.....↴

.....a view of the Bow River which had recently flooded......speaking of views here is the view this morning.....it appears Rich and Marnie's patio awning suffered some damage in the serious rain storm we had last night......↴

After a few days of being cooped up in the A/C cooled confines of the Newell we decided to spend a few hours out driving into Rapid City to drop off a previously received Amazon package for return.....I ordered the wrong item....doh!  I began the return on the Amazon site, and all I had to do was deliver the box to the nearest UPS Store where they scanned a bar code off my phone, printed a return shipping label, and gave me a receipt.....a simple 35 second process.  

From there we drove a block to the local Goodwill Store where we spent an hour browsing through their current offerings.  While this a very nice store, we found nothing which without we could not live.  Even when we don't find anything to buy it is always fun looking for that one hidden treasure which will scratch that 'junking' itch we get from time to time.

Once the itch was scratched we hopped back in the VW to head south to Hill City, SD for lunch at a local micro brewery called 'Sick and Twisted Brewing Company' which we had passed by the day we rode our bikes on the George S. Mickelson Bike Path....Yelp gives them 4 stars on just 4 reviews, which is not many, but we liked the vibe of the place and wanted to check it out for ourselves.  We arrived around 1 pm, and quickly ordered a 'flight' of 5 brews......

 From right to left: Natural Blonde Ale, Nut Hugger Brown Ale, Engine #7 Black Pale Ale, Naughty Red Head Imperial Red Ale, & Aces and Eights Amber Ale

.....after tasting our 5 choices we both settled upon the same one......Nut Hugger Brown Ale.... and ordered two pints to go along with a meat and cheese platter TLE ordered....

 Two Nut Hugger Brown Ales to go with our meat and cheese platter

.....we lingered for an hour, or more talking about our future travel plans, which are really a big bowl of Jello right now, and our summer travels to date.  We tried to look up a few destinations on our phones, but the broadband was a little spotty both at the brewery, and in downtown Hill City where we headed to do a little shopping at the local supermarket before heading back to Keystone.  At any rate, we will most likely be departing Keystone on either Sunday the 12th, or Monday the 13th to begin our trek back west on I-90....we've gone as far east this summer as we plan to go.

About two hours after we got home I heard a couple of loud 'PLUNKS' on the aluminum roof which sounded almost like pine cones, but we are under no trees of any kind.....uh oh.....here comes the big hail once again.  It is very unnerving to hear the golf ball size hail hitting your roof, solar panels and Fantastic Fan plastic vent cover.....you just sit, or stand there hoping nothing is damaged.....TLE retrieved a few examples of the hail stones for your viewing pleasure......

 Big.....

 .....Bigger.....

.....Biggest......

.....the hail lasted about 10 minutes, but it seemed much longer.  No apparent damaged was suffered, but if they had been much bigger, and more plentiful I do not think we would have been as fortunate.

Around 10 pm it began to rain once again, only this time it was more torrential in nature for about 30 minutes then it settled down to a light rain, on and off, the rest of the night.

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