Adventure on the Prairie

“Where the in the world are you sending me!?!” exclaimed Rob, obviously both annoyed and panicked when I heard his voice on the other end of the phone. “I’ve been driving for about two hours, I haven’t seen another car out on this highway for at least one hour, and I’m running out of gas. Are you sure this place is real?”          If I had known what I was really asking him to do, I would have been horrified. I had no idea a place like this existed, let alone how to safely navigate through the nuances of its lifestyle and location differences.  How to safely navigate through things everyone who lives there takes for granted, and does, like knowing that one should always fill up at every gas station one sees, no matter how low the gas gauge is, or isn’t.                Rob, our son who was 22 years old at the time, had been back to Ohio to visit us a few times since he had been stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City, South Dakota. He had driven across the southern part of South Dakota a number of times when he had come home on leave, which although it was sparsely populated, did not afford him the experience of driving in the endless expanse of open prairie for hours.  He was not prepared for what he and his gas gauge were facing that day on that hot, windy, and desolate trip to Lemmon, South Dakota…      Perhaps it was similar life threatening situations not from gas gauges, but from harsh conditions from adverse weather affecting people and livestock, or insect-damaged crops, which long ago drew the original pioneers into a closer bond with each other and with their God. Perhaps it is what keeps the modern date ancestors of the pioneers, the present day inhabitants of the prairie, a close and tightly knit “family”, bonded with each other.     Relive these past eight years of memories with us as we tell the stories of the true tale challenges, hardships and joys of the rural prairie homesteading lifestyle in South Dakota. The Adventure begins with this first book in the series. About the AuthorElaine Silverman has a love of telling stories through writing bout adventures in life. As a college-educated wife, mother, entrepreneur and professional freelance writer, she brings humor and life to the written page through her experiences and perceptions. 3