Mt. Rushmore and more...

Mt. Rushmore comes into view unexpectedly up in the Black Hills. It looks exactly like the pictures you've seen. But to see it in the middle of those Gaudi-like cake batter mountains, it's far more impressive. How did Borglum carve that out of those?

Rapid City is far more surprising! I was here over a decade ago and the town barely existed. Now you could fill up a 2 week vacation here with all kinds of crazy stuff.

Even though a storm came the kids were begging to go the Reptile Gardens. Their billboard advertising obviously worked, because we drove in an hour before they closed, long after the kids were whooped. This place didn't disappoint and everyone quickly had a second wind.

Grandma and I flipped over all the fossils and perfect skeletons. They actually had

a "pile of turtles" fossil found somewhere in Nebraska. They assume they were hibernating when they got covered. Very, very rare.

Peanut loved the Sky Dome with all the exotic birds. She got a "genuine alligator tooth" and can't wait to show it to her friends back home. She was overcome with the python as were we all. Little Man loved the real alligators almost as much as the giant fake Australian one. He also loved the parrots and the snake wrapped around his branch out of a cage. Doodle loved the alligators and the bouncing bird. She could have watched it all day but I found it very disturbing. I'm against caged birds in the first place. More over, I've seen parrots in the wild and they never acted like that. I'm sure this one was senile.

The storm cleared by the time we got out of there and we took a little drive through town. Funny town. Even funnier were Doodle and Little Man when we got back to the hotel. I asked them what they were doing and they said, "We're having an Ice Picnic" as though it were the most normal thing in the world!

The Corn Palace and Wall Drug

Grandma was the most excited about these two Americana tourist traps, so I'll let her tell you about it...

"This place was in the middle of the cutest town. Every place we've been in South Dakota is so tidy -- you can tell it was settled by Scandinavians.

Anyway, The Corn Palace is actually the town's civic center where they hold proms and graduations. But it's redecorated every year and they've been making the murals since the late 1800s, back when they still had board sidewalks. As incredible as it was on the outside, I just couldn't believe it when I went on the inside. (Never mind the cheesy gift store set up in the auditorium!). The murals made from the corn husks are so impressive. They use 600,000 pieces of corn, 3,000 bushels of grain and grass and over a ton of nails, staples and wires for fastening it all to the walls.

Everyone in town was friendly and nice and would you believe it was free?

Across the state in a perfectly straight line, nothing could have prepared me for Wall Drug. I expected an oversized drug store and it was the WHOLE town! They had every tourist item available, but also things I hadn't seen in a hundred years. This place went from room to room to room. It was actually multiple stores where the walls had been cut out -- now they call it all Wall Drug, but merchandise had to be paid within each room. It was nuts! They had everything Midwest: homemade ice-cream (and real chocolate malts!), home-made pies, buffalo burgers, fudge, crazy stuff for the kids like a mammoth sized Jackalope to climb on and a mock mine and fossil dig. They thought they'd died and gone to heaven with their found treasures.

We planned to spend an hour there an ended up killing half the day!

Peanut Post about the Homestead

The fourth Little House stop was the best. We even went on a covered wagon to an old school. One of the desks had a secret code carved on each side: Try Again and Don't Give Up. We got to ride ponies, make corn cob dolls, make our own rope and even play with kittens!

PS: In the school I even got to read a poem to the class out of one of the really, really old books.

De Smet, SD - Little House Homestead

Some of you may finally be reading or rereading the Little House series by now. I can't believe how engrossed we've become on this trip! The De Smet, SD stop was our final Little House stop and by far the favorite. It was the homestead, where Ma and Pa settled and are buried. Silver Lake is here and the Twin Lakes where Almanzo courted then married Laura. This is essentially Little House icing on the cake.

Just looking about the prairie and imagining life here in the late 1800's sends an awareness through your body of what people went through to bring us to the West. How Pa and other men like him chose their lot

in the first place is inconceivable. Not a tree in sight. Wind! Thinking about them surviving The Long Winter out here, or simply surviving their first year with 6 people in a one-room shanty smaller than my dining room makes me want to cry in shame! What a bunch of wimps we are! I swear I'll never complain again! Ever! Reading the stories, but then being here...smelling, touching and seeing is beyond words.

The best thing about this site is that the kids could run free across the prairie and there was so much available for them to do. The well actually worked, the barn had animals. They played on their first see-saw, washed clothes on a washboard with lye, had a mock spelling bee in the old school (Peanut spelled 'succeed' and then coached Doodle to spell her own name). They got to ride in a buggy, climb in a stagecoach, use machinery (corn shucker, wheat grinder, rope spinner) and they even got a turn with the reins in the covered wagon!

When Peanut came running out of the barn to announce there were kittens I thought she was going to burst. She started panting, "Mom, mom this is the BEST Little House stop ever. THERE-ARE-KITTENS-UPSTAIRS-IN-THE-BARN!!!!!"

Both girls wanted Laura and Carrie dresses (Doodle's bonnet was no longer sufficient) and have since refused answering to their own names. They are 100% in character. The Cute Factor of them running across the prairie was enough to do me in, but hearing them at bedtime say, "Goodnight Laura. Goodnight Carrie," will surely be the end of me!

South Dakota - State #25

WE ARE HALF WAY, baby!!!!!!!!!












Celebrate good times, c'mon!
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
We-are-family!
Hey Baby, Hey Baby, Hey!

South Dakota License Plate

The Price of Distraction

This time, I swear I had no idea I was speeding! Cha-ching again. We had just seen a sign and I was fervently explaining what a Prairie Dugout is to the kids. Blink! Blink! Blink! It should be duly noted that neither Grandma nor I had seen a speed limit sign in at least 50 miles. We assumed it was 70mph. Wrong-o. It was 60mph and I was pulled over for going 77mph.

The amazing part is that I was ridiculously distracted on this stretch of road. The noise from the back of the car is forever interrupting my focus, but every few miles I seemd to be actually stopping the car for one thing or another. Why? I was distracted by several things outside the car.

Apparently, in Minnesota, when a tiny sign says "road closed in 3 miles" it actually closes. They don't bother to actually block the road, or make it obvious that you need to exit immediately into no-mans land. One minute you're cruising along, and 5 minutes later the road is closed. A 3 mile U-turn sent us through some farmer's land and soon enough we were where we wanted to be. Shockingly efficient, if only I'd followed the tiny sign in the first place.

And then, the land changed again. The corn crops are at a different stage than when we were in Minnesota a couple of weeks ago. Look at the amber waves of grain. Ahh, it just gets into your soul, this land. Miles and miles of ever-changing landscapes. The sky has clouds floating right above you one minute, and the next minute it's clear and you're sitting inside a still snow globe.

Then the windmills appeared out of nowhere like holograms! I missed a picture of these driving at night in North Dakota and have been bummed about it ever since. These alien-like structures creep up on you one by one, until there's an army of them and you're fully surrounded. They literally go on as far as the eye can see. It's truly an arresting sight and I stopped for numerous pictures; I just couldn't get enough of them. When a parking lot with blades lying on the ground appeared by the side of the road, we had to stop yet again and actually get out. The enormity of an individual blade can hardly be described. They're smooth and lovely and when hooked up to the base, grandiose next to the wee farms they tower over.

So, I hope by this time you're not thinking I'm unfit to be behind the wheel. This ticket caught us all by surprise...