The fam has been able to get away for a little vacation now following Christmas. In trying to decide where to go, we focused primarily on where would be "do-able" driving. Airfare right after Christmas is waaaay too expensive (not to mention it probably would have been c-r-a-z-y this year for sure).
We decided to head to South Dakota. We had the intention in October with a long weekend, and we made it as far as Sioux Falls, which we discovered was very nice. Making it all the way to Mount Rushmore proved to be w-a-y too far, not really totally realizing how far across South Dakota is, and that Rapid City is on the western side of the state.
We started out heading west in Kansas, making a stop at Norton to see the folks at the radio station there. After that we headed north into Nebraska. Wow, what a desolate area of Nebraska that is. Those are some HEARTY folks out there, let me tell you. It's a beautiful area, in its own very specific way, but it seems so far away from "civilization." We stayed in Alliance, Nebraska, the first night, deciding against pushing on to Chadron, Nebraska, which was the initial plan. Alliance proved to be a nice little stop. On Friday morning, we went to the Knight Museum and Sand Hills Center in Alliance. It was a very, very nice museum, very well done.
Upon leaving the city limits of Alliance, we drove north about 1 1/2 miles, upon which we happened upon "
Carhenge"...I have to admit...it's pretty fun and funky!
After leaving "Carhenge", we continued north, and discovered we were glad that we had stayed in Alliance, instead of the planned Chadron stop. We continued on into South Dakota. The next stop was outside of Hot Springs, South Dakota, and the
Mammoth Center.
Apparently, this was a sink hole that has had archeological dig work started on it, and continues on currently. I can't remember, but I think they said they believe they have found like 60 some mammoth already in this dig site. It really is quite something. Allison really found it interesting, too.
While driving in South Dakota, we have seen some wild animals, i.e., deer, etc. , but here we came across about a half dozen buffalo strolling and grazing.
We got close enough to this one in the front that he actually turned around and starting walking towards us. It made me a little nervous I must admit, and Bruce did back up. The last thing I thought we needed was a buffalo storming and gouging our new grill on the front of the SUV!
We continued on to the Crazy Horse Memorial.
I had actually been here once before when I was a kid. It does not seem that it has come that far since then, but actually it has. The face is actually finished (1998, I believe). It was started in 1948, I think. Its taking a long time because it is being done totally with donations and entrance fees; no government monies have been accepted. This was the mission of the artist who did the carving and initial work, and the family has carried on with it. I wonder if it will be finished during my life time?
In one of the museum buildings we found a cat sleeping, so of course we had to try to pet it and take a picture of it. :)
We stayed in Rapid City for the night, downtown, in a historic hotel for Bruce. We stayed at the
Hotel Alex Johnson. On the top floor is a restaurant with an outdoor patio/viewing deck. They have gas heaters out there, but it still would have been quite chilly....but lovely!
Image by
Cool Text: Free Graphics Generator -
Edit Image
No comments:
Post a Comment