Our 2010 Auto Trip; Part VI, Travel to the Black Hills, Day 10

Black Hills of South Dakota; 1 July 2010 --

After a "continental" breakfast in the H&H restaurant, courtesy of the RodeWay Inn, we headed North on SD-73 to Philip, the old High School stomping grounds of the Grand Mother and Grumpy. We never attended Philip High at the same time; Grumpy attended there his Senior year only, and Mother came there as a Junior the following year.

Highway 73 was receiving a fresh "chip coat" (fresh tar and then a thin layer of gravel chips on the soft tar) and we arrived just in time to drive on the surface that had not yet had the chips applied. So we had to hold our speed to "not more than 40 mph" the entire 15 or so miles to keep from splashing too much of the soft tar onto our car finish. A random look after we arrived in Philip indicated that we had succeeded!

We visited an old school friend of Mother's, enjoying a few cups of coffee and cinnamon rolls together. Then we drove around this 800+ town to see what had changed and what had remained the same.

We saw the old house where Mother lived while she finished High School.

Then we drove past the Catholic Church, situated at the bottom of the 69 steps that both Mother and I ascended to the old High School building on the hill. The road that used to climb that hill meandering away from the steps as it made its way up to ease the steepness, was no longer in use -- but its mark in the soil remained.
 

From that corner below the school, we could see the tips of the pine trees my mother had planted after she had the "earth house" built.

The earth house was built by excavating into the side of a native, flat-topped, grass and weed-covered hillside overlooking the city of Philip.
Into this excavation, which opened out toward the southeast, a reinforced concrete floor and three walls were constructed. Next, about half of the floor area was covered by a reinforced concrete roof; along the outer edge of this roof a vertical retaining wall was built. The remainder of the area over the floor was covered with rather conventional-looking roof -- the roof sloping down toward the front of the building at about the same angle as the natural slope of the hillside that it blended with. After completing the concrete structure, including the retaining wall, some of the excavated earth was filled back into the void above and the entire area re-seeded with Buffalo grass, and my mother planted several seedling Ponderosa pine and Cheyenne river Red Cedar trees. All of the trees on the hillside below and to either side of the house were planted by my Dad.

Some of the Ponderosa that my Dad planted are now over 30 feet tall and have completely obstructed a view of the house from the streets of the city below, as this photo that was taken from the street near the Court House shows. A sharp-eyed observer may detect the chimney peering out from between two Ponderosa pine trees at the upper left of center.