How the West was.... (Everything I ever wanted from the West!)

Wow, I can't believe we've only been on the road for a week. It feels longer than that, only because we have seen SO MUCH in the past week. America is chock-a-block full of amazing sights.

Today, the morning was dedicated to State Parks and National Memorials. We packed our tent up and headed out to take a scenic drive through Custer State Park's Wildlife Loop. At first, it didn't seem very populated. Lots of beautiful views and amazing scenery, but no Wildlife. We drove past a prairie dog warren, which was cute but we had already fed those little guys up close and personal, so it was kind of eh.

But then. Oh man. We met up with a herd of burros coming the other direction on the road.

The burros were expecting to get fed, so they were super friendly.

No, seriously. Super friendly.

After we ran into the first herd of burros, it became an animal extravaganza! More burros on the road, including some super-friendly types that decided they wanted to come for a ride with us in the car; pronghorn herds that meandered across the road, waiting on the word from the alpha male to move along so that we could continue our drive; and of course last (and abso-positively not least) the bison!

We were about to leave the park without having encountered a single American buffalo, when we decided to stop at the Visitor's Center to get some postcards. Inside, a very friendly and genteel employee was informing folks that the entire herd was just over the hill and if we took the dirt trail across the way, we could see them lounging and grazing in the sun.

He was completely right. It was a breath-taking sight to come over the rise and see the massive herd of bison spread out beneath us. It was evocative of when herds of these giant animals roamed the American prairie, and I had a little pang that those days are gone, and this is the closest I will ever come to seeing something like that.

But this was everything I had hoped my first up-close view of the American buffalo would be. The majority of the parks 1300 buffalo seemed to be gathered on the big sunny field below us and little family groups were ambling back and forth across the road we were driving on.

We got some truly amazing shots, both of the herd and up close. Take a gander!

I love South Dakota. I kind of wish we had stayed longer and explored the parks more, but we had set kind of a time schedule for ourselves. Next time, though. Next time.

After the park, we swung back north to take in Mount Rushmore, which was just as large and presidential as I had hoped it would be. Not much to say about the monument, honestly. It was just as it is always pictured, and I get the feeling that it would be far more impressive if I could have seen it up close in order to truly appreciate the magnitude.

But, we got our obligatory tourist shot, bought some nifty souvenirs and then headed out again because we had a seven hour drive through Wyoming and Colorado to look forward to. We did have a little time to kill, so we decided to go a little bit farther north to Rapid City.

Rapid City is known as the city of presidents. Not only is it about a half hour from Rushmore, but they have almost life-size statues of 42 Presidents on their street corners. They are missing Barack Obama and someone else, but since they have George W, Bill, Bush Senior and the other more recent ones that I know, it must be someone farther back in the annals of history that I can't remember because he didn't do anything noteworthy enough to receive a highlight in 8th grade Social Studies.
It's going to bother me until I puzzle it out, though, so once I have done my homework, I'll let you know.

After meeting with (almost) all the Presidents, we started the drive south toward Colorado Springs and Tom's cousin Amy's house. I wanted one more stop, though, at the Cosmos Mystery Area. It is one of those silly Roadside America attractions where the gravity of the Earth is supposedly skewed and the physics that govern our universe are all a-tangle.

Tom cynically proclaimed it all an optical illusion built upon a ferrite hill that is just slightly more gravitationally significant than the surrounding landscape, thus creating some oddities in the vegetation, but to that I say PFAH! I believe in magic, and weird gravity wells and I refuse to let his craaaaazy science talk convince me otherwise!

Either way, it is a diverting and amusing little attraction.

After I had dragged Tom through another one of my silly side-trips, we began the long trek through Wyoming.

There is nothing there. No, seriously. Wyoming is empty. It is fields and sky for as far as the eye can see, broken by the occasional herd of cows. Moo.

At one point we drove into the leading edge of a prairie storm and we raced to try and get ahead of it. Scary, but also fodder for some really amazing photos.

We decided that we would stop in Cheyenne, the capital, in order to bathroom break, eat, and trade drivers since Tom had been going through all of Wyoming and needed a break. Folks, Cheyenne is not a city. Do not let its status as a "capital city" fool you. It is a very large town. The population of Cheyenne is lower than its altitude. It is barely 4 miles across. But it had a Subway that was open and a gas station and so I thank you Cheyenne, for... you know... existing.

I drove the rest of the way through Colorado to Amy's house, through wet, dark highways, trying not to be killed by the people doing 90 because the speed limit is 75.

Wyoming: Despite the fact that there is nothing in you, I love you. You are beautiful and I promise that I will come and visit again someday for something more than a long-ass drive down a back highway somewhere.

But for now, there is Colorado. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us!

(George Dubya approves this message)

Gangsters, Rivers, Prairie Dogs and Photo Shoots: South Dakota!

South Dakota is awesome you guys. Like, so awesome and there is so much here! We didn't get to do nearly the amount of things we could have done or that I wanted to do! I will need to come back here someday for sure.

We woke up early and re-stoked our campfire so that we could cook breakfast before our first stop of the day at Devil's Gulch. One needs a hearty breakfast if one is going to be following the footsteps (or hoofprints) of the one of the country's most famous gangsters!

The legend goes that Jesse James urged his horse to leap the 20 feet from one side to the other of Devil's Gulch to escape the lawman's posse that was after him. Twenty feet doesn't sound like a lot, but when you are standing on the creaky, rusty bridge they have going over the spot where he jumped, you truly appreciate the magnitude of that jump.

Also, according to the literature in the little photo-copied brochure the nice old man at the tiny visitor's center gave us, the spot beneath the jump is known as the Bottomless Pit. One time, a 600-foot plumb line was dropped into and never hit bottom!

Of course, in reality, Jesse and his horse probably just raced around the Gulch, but the story is better the other way, and I am all about the story.

Fresh from our gangster adventure, we headed to Sioux Falls to see the river that gives the town its name. It was beautiful and rather refreshing to stand in the spray from the falls on a hot day. Once we left the Falls, I convinced Tom to stop at the Mitchell Corn Palace and it was everything I hoped it would be.

Corn and corny jokes and corn-themed souvenirs, oh my! But, honestly, that there, that is America, and it is what I love about America. They proudly proclaim that it is the only Corn Palace in the World! Know why it is the only Corn Palace in the world? Because it is lame! So lame! But that right there is what is so wonderful about it! They're like "Heck yeah, our corn palace is lame, but we love it and we embrace it and we invite you to come and join us in our wonderful quirky lame-ness." And I'm like, "Yes, absolutely, I will join you in your wonderful quirky lame-ness." And I do. And it is excellent.

Moving right along, we made our way to Chamberlain, SD, which is right on the Missouri River. The rest stop had a gorgeous panorama, and some interesting stuff about Lewis and Clark, but we didn't stay long because we wanted to get to our next big destination: The Badlands.

Oh. My. God. The Badlands are simply breathtaking. Each new amazing sight on this trip makes me imagine that I will never see anything so amazing or beautiful again in my life, and then each time I am proved wrong. And I am so very very glad for that.

America the Beautiful indeed.

I can't do the Badlands justice in words, so here are some pictures.

On the way into the Badlands we stopped at a Prairie Dog ranch where we got to feed the prairie dogs and got some of the most adorable pictures and video ever taken, I think. No seriously, look.

Anyway, we ended the day in Custer State Park where we set our tent up in the dark and crashed out.

Minnesota: Closed due to Incompetence

On our way out of Wisconsin, we did indeed find us some cheese curds, and they were DELICIOUS. I wasn't sure what everyone meant when they talked about the squeak. It is an experience that is indescribable! Not indescribable in the way we use it to talk about beautiful sites or whatever. But seriously, biting into a fresh cheese curd is something you really need to experience for yourself.

We left Wisconsin and entered Minnesota and it was beautiful. Indescribable in the way we mean it when talking about something beautiful. We decided to stop at a state park to eat lunch, but discovered that it is closed. In fact, all of the state parks in Minnesota are closed because they couldn't get the state budget together. Which is awful, because not only did we miss out on what I feel is probably completely stunning scenery, but according to the park ranger that checked us in at Palisades State Park in South Dakota, the state of Minnesota is losing a million dollars A DAY due to its state parks being closed. Crazy! But, hey- their loss, South Dakota's gain.

We settled into our cute little camp site, set up our tent and chairs, and then decided to explore a bit. We actually got a chance to ride our bikes again! We biked around the park, climbed some neat rocks, and then we cooked our dinner over the camp fire. Tom got to use his cast iron pans, so he was happy.
Next on our tour is the rest of South Dakota, heading toward Mount Rushmore!

On Wisconsin!

This morning we woke up to a fierce storm sweeping through Chicago, so we camped out in our hotel room until the sideways rain stopped, then we loaded up the car again and drove north to visit Aunt Patti and Uncle Les in Wisconsin.

It was a very quick drive and we made it to Wisconsin by lunch. We had fresh veggies from the garden! Om nom nom. Er, well. I had fresh veggies. Tom hissed and dove under the table, crying out in fear and loathing.

The vegetables were delicious.

After lunch, Uncle Les took us on a bike ride along the Glacier-Blenheim trail, which was lovely. It was mostly flat and we rode a total of 9 miles out and back.

By the time we got back, it was just about time for dinner so we had some iced tea and chatted, caught up on family news, and then had spaghetti and tomato sauce. Aunt Patti and Uncle Les had hoped to grill brats for us, but with the weather being so iffy, we went the pasta route. We made up for it though, I had some of Uncle Les's home-brewed beer!

After dinner, we went and got another famous piece of Wisconsin cuisine--custard. Mmmm... yummy.

Tomorrow we are leaving very early in order to get a jump on the drive to Palisades State Park and on the way, we get to stop and purchase another famous Wisconsin delicacy: Cheese curds. I am looking forward to the squeak. =)

Day out in Chicago

This morning we slept in. After the 10 hour drive from Pittsburgh, including the 5 hour drive across Indiana, and the 6 am wake-up time, I feel like we kind of deserved it!

Once we got up and moving, we asked our very nice, and extremely helpful Innkeep whether we could get a train into the city. Turns out, yes! There is a train station about 10 minutes down the road from our Inn, so we drove the car down there. Weirdly enough, there is no all-day parking near the train station (at least, not on Sundays) but we asked an employee, and he confided to us his super-secret free parking spot on a side street a block away.

We got on the Blue Line at Jefferson Park and rode it into the city. We decided to get off at the Park/Lake stop because I had hoped to ride the Loop, but we couldn't quite figure out which train was the elevated one (turns out all of them, but we were unaware at the time) so instead, we wandered out and discovered the theatre district.

At this point, we were getting pretty hungry, so we sought out delicious pizza from Uno's. And it was delicious indeed! Mmm, deep dish cheese pizza from the home of deep dish pizza. Om nom nom. I really liked the sauce they used and thought it was pretty cool that the sauce was spread on top of the cheese instead of underneath. Different and delicious.

After a very satisfying late lunch, we headed down the Magnificent Mile towards Millennium Park in order to see The Bean!
For those not in the know, the Bean is the nickname for a giant metallic sculpture called the Cloud Gate. It is fascinating watching the city and the people being reflected in the surface of the statue.

The park is right near Lake Michigan and the cool breeze coming off the water was an irresistible draw on such a hot day, so we decided to stroll along the wharf towards the Aquarium and the Planetarium. It was a lovely stroll and we got a snow cone and some lemonade along the way. By this time, the sun was starting to set, so we decided to head back, but we needed to find a train stop first.

After a little hiccup where we mistook the Metra for the CTA trains, we found a Red Line stop and rode it to the transfer with the Blue Line. Tom was pretty much done, but he was nice enough to indulge me in one last stop at Logan Park.

What's in Logan Park? The neighborhood of one of my favorite comic artists, Lucy Knisley. She lives in Chicago at the moment, but she is moving back to New York and so she made a comic all about her favorite places in her neighborhood. I guess it makes me a crazy stalker fan, but I was so grabbed by her honest love for the place that I really wanted to see it for myself. So, we went to her favorite local coffee place to give it a try.
Is that weird? Yeah, that's weird. Oh well!

Tomorrow we head to Wisconsin to see Aunt Patti and Uncle Les. Onward to the dairy state!