Great Friends coming to Great Places!

Meeting up with old friends is a truly heartwarming experience.

And for the past decade or so, the authors of this website have been making a trek every April "back East" to some of the most beautiful country in America -- the Great Smoky Mountains, the Ozarks, and other locales.  Our purpose has been to break bread, enjoy good conversation, and reaffirm friendships that have endured both time and distance.  All the while, appreciating our surroundings -- the truly magnificent diversity and enormous beauty that God has etched across the terrain of our United States.

And now it's our turn to host this eclectic collection of friends who live in such diverse locations as Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, and North Carolina.  To be sure, they've displayed more than a little apprehensiveness about such a long journey to "Dakota Territory."

Having now convinced them that we not only have Bed & Breakfasts in South Dakota, we also have revealed that we benefit from both running water and electricity.

All of our "April Group" have come to learn that it really makes little difference where  we meet.  Activities and sightseeing are always fun, but in the final analysis, it's a group of dear friends who are renewing and reaffirming their bonds with one another, while feasting on a variety of foods and stories.  But the backdrop offered by Mother Nature is not without importance.  We've mingled with bears in the Tennessee mountains and strolled along the white beaches of Alabama.  Museums of every sort -- from cars and trains to Navy planes.  And picking up local crafts and foods, while exploring new cuisines along the way.

In helping assuage our dear friends of any lingering "buyer's remorse" in making the decision to come to South Dakota next spring, we offer the following video.  It's one of a series of excellent pieces commissioned by the South Dakota Department of Tourism. And we think it effectively illustrates the vast beauty of our adopted state.

We really do have Great Faces and Great Places....for Great Friends.  See you next April!