Dinner with Claire and Calvin Baker

Claire Baker and hubby, Calvin drove through Rapid City today and Scott and I were able to catch up with them at dinner.  Claire and I have been Dear Jane quilt friends for many, many years.  I've spend some enjoyable times at their home in Middlebury, Indiana before they moved out to Chester, Pennsylvania.  They are now on their way to South Jordan, Utah.  Calvin just retired from State Farm, so the lucky man will now have the opportunity to live the life of leisure.

We met Claire and Calvin at Ruby House Restaurant in Keystone for dinner.  Calvin, Scott and I all have the Indian Taco and Claire had the Taco Salad.  Scott also had a cup of the Chicken Parmesan Soup that was really good and tasted just like Chicken Parm!  Who knew.  Check out their lunch and dinner menus.  We spend a good hour and a half enjoying each other's company and catching up on lost time and talking about the future.

We chatted a lot about RV living, what they'll be doing in Utah and what has happened to the Dear Jane group.  I found out that my friend, Fiona Gray from England recently passed away which saddened me.  Fiona was the most prolific hand piecer I had every known!  She came all the way from England to Indiana for the Dear Jane Retreats every six month.  She will certainly be missed.

Fiona (in red) 2005 at Dear Jane Retreat showing her hand pieced quilt blocks.
Caroline Van Maele Photo

The Ruby House Restaurant has multi-level dining and outdoor covered patio dining.  It's decorated in vintage 1900's elegant turn-of-the-century decor.  They serve good food from prime rib, steaks, seafood, buffalo steak, salads, desserts, etc.  And, the offer a nice children's menu where kids can also get a smaller prime rib or ribs.  You don't see that all that often.  So, it's a family friendly place.  The poor Ruby House has had it's share of mishaps...the 1972 flood and then a fire in 2003 where they had to rebuild the whole establishment.  But, they bounced back a year later and Ruby House is still a thriving restaurant in the Black Hills.

After dinner, we did a little photo op and we were on our way home after stopping off at a small shop to pick up from little beaded bracelets and a beaded coin purse.  Ironically, Claire and Calvin were in the same shop getting a sign.

The weather today has been warm and windy.  As we were on the drive to Keystone we had an alert show up on the RAM dashboard that said Storm Warning.  There was no clouds ahead of me but when I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw the entire sky filled with clouds.  Fortunately, we weren't involved in any storm...that's how fast the weather changes here in Rapid City.

It was a fun day.  We're starting to get ready to leave South Dakota.  Monday, Scott will go down to the Sheriff's office for his concealed carry permit and then we are ready to go on the next adventure of our journey.