I'm sure my traveling companions have already apologized for the lack of entries, so I won't. We've just been having a bit too much fun with too few hotspots available. It falls upon me to discuss with you the Black Hills as a region, a religious idea, and a national forest, as well as its underground adornment, Wind Cave. I had previously read about the Black Hills of course; they are sacred to the Sioux tribe, the natives got screwed over, they're now vacationland for rich whities, etc. I was somewhat skeptical, as I am wont to be on occasion. However, [View Full Entry]

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WEEK SIX: CHOTEAU , MT TO CUSTER , SD Tuesday, June 30 We took our time leaving Choteau lingering over long expanses of soft green prairies and buttes and memories Jen’s hospitality,. Civilization seems an ugly interruption of this lovely land. The Ulm Pishkun State Park, ten miles out of Great Falls is the historic Buffalo Jump of the First Peoples.  For hundreds of years the Great Plains Indian Tribes hunted buffalo by driving them over these and many other cliffs. To get to the edge of these impressive cliffs you must walk through a prairie dog town on top of [View Full Entry]

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Ron was right -the fun did start in South Dakota! The drive from Michigan is a very long! One of the best parts is on highway 90 right at the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is all hills and valleys where the small rivers feed into the Mississippi. There are stretches of S. Dakota that have acres and acres of corn and sunflowers. We are in Custer State Park which is on the western edge of the state about 70 miles from Wyoming. This park is enormous, 71,000 acres in the Black Hills. We are in the Blue Bell campground; [View Full Entry]

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If it’s September, we must be on the road! We’re headed to Rexford, Kansas, by the way of Mt. Rushmore. We spent several days in Rapid City, where we haven’t been since our girls were in junior high. Two things come to mind: things have really changed in Rapid City, and we must be getting old. Both of those thoughts are ok with me! The weather was windy and rainy (is this the summer for that???) so we didn’t do a lot of looking around, but we did spend most of a day at Mt Rushmore. They have developed it [View Full Entry]

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Hallo vrienden allemaal, Eerst even een aanpassing aan de klok. Rond het middaguur, plaatselijke tijd, zijn we terechtgekomen in een andere tijdzone. Deze keer in ons voordeel. Wij werden weer een uurtje jonger en daardoor bevinden wij ons nu in een tijdzone die 8 uur vroeger is dan in België. En dan nog dit : onze communicatieve capaciteiten worden hier beknot dat het niet mooi is om te beschrijven ... Met andere woorden : NERGENS hebben wij hier bereik met onze GSM. Volgende dagen zullen wij ons moeten beperken tot e-mail en Facebook, Netlog, Twitter en ... Overigens hebben wij d [View Full Entry]

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Day 4: Tuesday, July 28, 2009: Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Devils Tower Leaving Wall, Sophie (etc.) and I sauntered our way through the Black Hills National Forests, largely filled with sweet-smelling pine trees. The goal for the day is to visit all three National Monuments, beginning with Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest, then 17 miles to the Crazy Horse Memorial, and finally, approx. 150 miles to Devils Tower, forever linked to the image of Richard Dryfess in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The site is in Wyoming. Ranking the t [View Full Entry]

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Lobelia picked up Podo at 8:40 am. We drove down I-35 and turned West at I-90. We stopped in Blue Earth for old times sake, having attended the Norwegian Fjord Horse show there in the past. The horses had already gone home, so we didn't see any. Shane attempted the clutch, but it didn't go well. We will try again tomorrow. We are listening to the Lord of the Rings trilogy on CD. Curiosities seen on the way: Guy on a motorcycle with a hockey stick. Why does one need a hockey stick in July? Jolly Green Giant statue. It never [View Full Entry]

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Well we inended to get up early and go to Mt Rushmore right away but we were behind schedule as we discovered the campground did in fact have showers down by the beach, sw we took advantage of them. So, we decided to run into Rapid City first to pick up somethings we needed and then get to Mt Rushmore in the afternoon. Rapid city and the tourist sprawl toward Mt Rushmore is incredible compared to the last time Patti & I were there about 15 years ago. It took me a while to get used to those curvey mtn roads [View Full Entry]

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Day 5 July 13th The Black Hills,Custer State Park, Crazy Horse Monument, SD & Devils Tower,WY What a day! We woke up in Keystone,SD and drove thru the Black Hills and the wild life loop in Custer State Park. We saw antelope, fed the begging burros, found a prairie dog town, saw some Buffalo, and went thru some hair raising tunnels and twisting and turning steep roads. Phil is doing awesome driving! We then headed to the Crazy Horse National Monument. We learned so much about Crazy Horse and the indian tribes in the area. It is a work in progress [View Full Entry]

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On Wednesday July 8, we woke up in Gillette WY, and saw the "Devils Tower" National Monument , which is more properly called the Bear Lodge National Monument. All the Indian nations called it something like Bears Lodge, and the caucasian explorer just came up with his own name, but claimed Devils Tower was the Indian name. Devils Tower was the backdrop for the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, so we had to see it. Cray earned his fourth Junior Ranger badge there, after we heard a great talk from a Lakotan (Sioux) Indian woman about the Indian tradit [View Full Entry]

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