South Dakota Wrap-up

Posted on February 7, 2011February 7, 2011 by Dusty Roads

This vacation can be summed up in one word…AMAZING! It was so much more than I expected. What a journey of perception to go from “What’s in South Dakota” to “Amazing”.

Everyone’s hot button will be different but for me it’s animals…all kinds of animals. If I’m in Florida I’m always on the look out for creatures, ‘gators, birds, snakes ; when we go to Alaska I’ll want to see seals, sea birds , bears maybe whales and walrus but I didn’t know what to expect in South Dakota.

I think I loved the Wild Horses the best

Racing the Wind

followed by those funny little prairie dogs.

But seeing buffalo in the wild ,

not a zoo was really something as were the “beggin’ burros of Custer State Park.

Of course it is “where the deer and the antelope play”.

I couldn’t help but compare my Pronghorn experience in Arizona with the Pronghorn experience in South Dakota. In South Dakota there were Mule Deer, White tail and antelope around every turn. Some even seemed to be posing for the photo ops, very few seemed skittish..

Sometimes it seemed like they were as busy watching us as we were them. In Arizona I saw 1 pronghorn way off in the distance and 1 mule deer family while I was on a tour bus at the grand canyon. The difference is notable.

We didn’t eat in fancy restaurants but the food was good and everyone we met was nice and helpful. The Foothills Inn was clean and everything as promised. Our stay there was very pleasant. I have no complaints.

Mount Rushmore takes your breath away when you see it for the first time. It is truly a monument for the ages. I only wish the weather had been better when we visited the mountain. Maybe next trip. Sorry I missed the Needles Highway but Iron Mountain Road was a great experience. Had our budget and time allowed, we definitely should have included a visit to Crazy Horse and not just the drive by. Next time?

Keystone to Hill City and back on a vintage train. The 1880 Train did not disappoint.

It was a relaxing ride through the Blackhills while the narrators gave us quick bits and stories sprinkled with lots of humor.

The caves, Wind Cave and the mining tunnel at Thunder Falls…both interesting and worthwhile visits. There are still many more caves in the area to explore as well as more passages and tours in Wind Cave. I guess you could say we only “scratched the surface”.

The Mammoth Dig isn’t a cave but it’s a great indoor activity for a rainy day. Well worth a visit.

Rapid City is a great city.. We only just touched on what there is to do. I’ve heard there’s shopping and art but we only had the one day so we got to visit Skyline Dr and Dinosaur Park,

checked out the presidents in downtown

and ended at the Journey Museum.

The city has a beautiful park as we learned on our trolley ride and so much more that we missed.

It deserves more than one day. To paraphrase a saying…so much to see, so little time J

I can’t forget to mention the “Longest Dirt Road” that crossed Pine Ridge Reservation and meeting with members of the tribe. A nice, nice memory! Maybe next time we’ll find a Pow-Wow and visit Wounded Knee.

We need another visit to Wall Drug with it’s “Free Ice water” . Great souvenir shopping so bring your wallet! They are also online. www.walldrug.com

Last but certainly not least was magnificent scenery of the Badlands. That rugged beauty impressed me as much as the Grand Canyon but in a different way.

I’m so glad I have so many pictures and wonderful memories. My friends said I wouldn’t want to come back to New England. Well, I wasn’t ready to leave South Dakota, there was still so much to see and do, as one of my readers expressed as they told us of waterfalls and sights we missed, but I am not ready to move there. LOL I would consider a 2^nd vacation and next time someone says to me “what’s in South Dakota I’ll know just what to say…”So much you just won’t believe it ‘til you see it!”

That about sums up the South Dakota vacation. It’s time to start planning the May trip to Sedona, Arizona. I also have some day trips coming up that I will fill you in on as they roll around. As always suggestions, comments , cheers and jeers and welcome. I hope I’ll be hearing from you, my readers!J

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Just a quick reminder…there’s only a few more days to vote for your favorite name for the Prairie Dog.

Prairie Dog with Flower

You’ll find the poll on the archive site: http://aroundustyroads.blogspot.com

The Journey Museum, Rapid City, South Dakota

Posted on February 5, 2011February 5, 2011 by Dusty Roads

The Journey Museum is a modern facility located in Rapid City. The museum is set in 7 acres of gardens. The premise of the museum is of a journey through the time and history of The Black hills. The journey begins with the Native American Creation stories before moving on to the geology exhibit, paleontology, archeology, Native Americans and the pioneers.

I confess that we didn’t spend the amount of time to do this museum justice. We were limited by the time restraints of the trolley schedule. We also only glimpsed the gardens because by now the weather was taking a turn for the worse.

The geology presentation was interesting if a bit dry. I’m sure “rock hounds” would eat it up but before long I was edging to the back so I could slip into the next exhibit.

The exhibit halls were roomy and well presented and the facilities immaculate. The next room had Teepees set up so you could actually see how the plains Indians lived. There were some holographic presentations but some of them were not functioning. Native American Artifacts and pottery were displayed in cases around the room.

We moved on to the Paleontology exhibit where the dinosaurs seemed to be alive. That was an excellent exhibit.

If I get back to Rapid City I am definitely going to revisit the museum. From what I’ve read, we missed a lot by being pressed for time.

That about wraps up our time in the Badlands. We had an early flight out of Rapid City in the morning so we grabbed the trolley back to the Dinosaur Park where we’d left the car and headed back to the hotel to pack and call it an early night.

Next post: Final thoughts and South Dakota wrap-up

Rapid City, SD~City of Presidents

Posted on February 4, 2011February 4, 2011 by Dusty Roads

Rapid City is sometimes called The City of Presidents because it proudly displays life sized bronzes of United States Presidents on the street corners of downtown. We strolled around the downtown taking pictures of and sometimes with each statue. I am not going to include them all in this post. If you want so see them all you’ll have to go yourself but suffice it to say this is an on-going project that will eventually included all of the presidents with new ones being added consecutively.

Ronald Reagan

The project is funded entirely by private donations and each artist has ties to South Dakota in some way. . Each artist researched the president they were assigned to depict the familiar and/or notable characteristics of that president in their work.

Lincoln

Some of the older presidents were hard to identify. For example William McKinley is presented with a telephone in his hands because he was the first president to use the telephone in a campaign for office.

William McKinley

I did not know that so seeing the phone I thought of Alexander Graham Bell even though he was never president. I wondered if they were statues of famous people , not just presidents, especially since there were several statues of Native Americans, but I was wrong.

Using a map we picked up at the visitor center I believe I have identified all of the statues we visited.

1) James Monroe 2) John Quincy Adams 3) Lyndon Johnson 4) William Howard Taft 5)Martin Van Buren 6) John F. Kennedy ( I definitely recognized him as I’m from Massachusetts) 7) Andrew Jackson 8) Franklin Pierce 9) Theodore Roosevelt (another familiar face) 10) James Buchanan 11) Warren Harding 12) Woodrow Wilson (With a little discussion we also got his identity) 13) Millard Fillmore 14) Zachary Taylor 15) John Tyler 16) Harry S. Truman (Yes we recognized him too) 17) Henry Harrison 18) Gerald Ford (Another familiar face) 19)James Madison 20) Thomas Jefferson (We recognized Ol’ Tom with his copy of the Declaration of Independence) 21)George Washington (Of course. He has the most famous face in US history) 22) Jimmy Carter (Oh yes, we knew him too) 23) Andrew Jackson 24) Ronald Reagan (Yes we knew Ronnie’s statue) 25) Dwight D. Eisenhower (Yes again) 26) Richard Nixon (Of course) 27) James Polk 28) Grover Cleveland 29) William McKinley 30) Ulysses S. Grant (another yes) 31) Franklin D. Roosevelt (Yes) 32) Herbert Hoover 33)Calvin Coolidge 34) George Bush Sr (of course) 35) John Adams.

LBJ

It was fun and challenging trying to ID all of the Presidents before we checked either the plaque or the map. I thought about making flash cards from the photos to practice so I will remember them but I’d rather just look it up. HA HA

JFK

It took quite awhile to walk all those blocks so we were glad to get back on the trolley.

Jimmy Carter

The trolley continued through a park that we hadn’t even realized was there and then pulled into the Journey Museum. As we hopped off here the driver told us the last trolley was at 4:30 and not to miss that.

Nixon

I’ll tell you about the Journey Museum in my next post.

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Dinosaurs, Trolleys and Presidents, Oh My!

Posted on February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 by Dusty Roads

It’s the last full day of vacation and the one place we haven’t explored is Rapid City. It just seemed wrong to have spent a week in this city and not explore it at all but we’d been busy exploring all around it. So today we’re going to see Rapid City. Unfortunately we have another gray day. Occasionally it sprinkled but there were no downpours.

So after breakfast at Denny’s we drove to Dinosaur Park where we parked our car and prepared to climb the stairs to the park. Dinosaur Park has been around since 1936 and is filled with vintage , life size Dinosaurs.

That is something to keep in mind when you see them. They have not been updated to reflect current knowledge of dino anatomy, but that is part of their charm.

These sculptures aren’t off limits at all as kids climb all over them. It’s not a very big park so if you don’t have children that want to ride on a stegosaurs you will probably be done there pretty quickly. Still it’s worth the climb to be able to look out over Rapid City. The views are amazing.

Leaving the Dinosaurs in the little hilltop park we browsed the gift shop and then caught the trolley for a ride into town. Like most of the trolley’s I’ve been on, this combines a sight -seeing tour with transportation. This trolley is at least partly supported by the City of Rapid City which seems to be a common way to subsidize their operating costs.