clouds, Solo, and a *helicopter ride*

I'm just gonna leave this click-bait picture of Terry's helicopter ride from June 9th right here...

I'll get back to the helicopter, but I needed a place for my cloud pictures from June 8 and they came first chronologically. So apparently the rain that plagued us in Red Lodge was pretty wide spread. When we got home the first week of June, it rained a lot. I love South Dakota thunderstorms. 

I like to climb the hill behind our house and take it all in. 

My sister loves clouds so I always send them to her. I think she said, "Cl-wow-d," which I thought was pretty clever.

I took this coming down from the high point where I was before. All that grass is on the back side of the dumb new road, but I'm so excited that it actually grew grass this year!

Last year was too dry for the hydro seed to do much, so I'm pleased it came up this year. The grass was SO tall, like probably four feet, until they cut it a few weeks back. But even now it's growing again and this time tons of yellow clover is coming up. 

So that day was June 8. I took all the cloud pics because I was updating my sister on the dahlias she sent me and how some of them had started sprouting. Anyway, that evening we all went to see the new Star Wars Solo movie. It was just Meh for me. No one can beat Harrison Ford. 

Afterward we went to Burger King for an ice cream treat.

Okay, so back to the helicopter. Our friend Jeff, who I play volleyball with, had invited Terry out to lunch for June 9th and once at Ruby Tuesday Jeff just straight up asked him, "Would you like to go for a helicopter ride?" Terry texted me that he was going and I was just dumbfounded. Wait, what? Turns out Jeff's wife, Ronna, had gifted him a helicopter ride for a birthday or something in the recent past and he was hooked. He had bought some more rides with a special coupon deal and wanted Terry to see things "from a new perspective." How cool is that?!

So apparently there's a helicopter service just up the hill when you first reach Keystone, next to that hotel that climbs up the hill before you even get to the light. This is them leaving.

Once up in the air, you're only a couple of miles from Mount Rushmore so you see it right away. 

Zooming a little. 

The video footage is better of course. Terry kind of pans back and forth between Mt. Rushmore on the left and Mount Baldy on the right.

This last video is long but I wanted to be able to remember it all. After they turned away from Mount Rushmore they just did a slow circle back to Keystone. It was a super quick trip, only lasting about five minutes. Jeff is awesome! 

Back to clouds. Because, I mean, helicopters go with clouds...so we're good. My sister asked why I couldn't get further away from the telephone poles so I could better pics of the sky. This is why. I can't go past the  National Guard fence or else. 

That corner of fence in the middle of the picture is where I hike up to take my sky pictures from.

Two days after the last storm we got another. I caught a bird flying overhead...

...there it goes.

Pretty tall grass and the always lovely purple bell wildflower, Campanula?

I love these little guys.

Once the storm was mostly passed, the remaining clouds were amazing.