{"id":10284,"date":"2026-07-09T11:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T11:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/?p=10284"},"modified":"2026-07-09T11:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T11:18:23","slug":"sodak-july-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/?p=10284","title":{"rendered":"SoDak July 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We took our annual “run back to South Dakota over the 4th” trip this year and it was a little different because we ended up having a very large family gathering too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were staying up in the hills near deadwood \/ lead and had a fabulous time. The most amazing things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. A giant solar flair, an M-class and strong X1.3, whatever that means, hit the earth and showed us beautiful, but faint, northern lights. This is my first time seeing northern lights in South Dakota!<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. The galactic core of the Milkyway was out!!! I don’t see the Milkyway any more since I live in a large urban area, and, the Rapid City area has grown enough such that it’s not easy to see the Milkyway in town anymore. It was definitely a treat! One of the photos of the northern lights has part of the Milkyway; it was a rare treat to see both and not have clouds, the moon, city lights, and whatever else ruining the view. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. It’s still wet enough to grow wild rose, wild raspberries, serviceberries, and other neat fruits \/ plants in the wild. I don’t recall seeing a lot of this growing up in the hills and it’s definitely a treat whenever I get to see them. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. We had an unobstructed view of the fireworks over the Homestake open cut pit. It was super neat to see!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All in all, it was another fantastic trip :). Enjoy the photos!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Chris W. <\/p>\n\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We took our annual “run back to South Dakota over the 4th” trip this year and it was a little different because we ended up having a very large family gathering too. We were staying up in the hills near deadwood \/ lead and had a fabulous time. The most amazing things: All in all, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":6639},"categories":[2],"tags":[359,328,19,358],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10298,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10284\/revisions\/10298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/word.christopherwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}