The perils of a busy sightseeing life...

Wow. It's been a week since I last even attempted to get caught up here. I think I'm about a month behind at this point already.....

Currently we are in DC trying to see it ALL, even though we realize that is pretty much impossible. One can hope.

We spent several days in NY, with plenty of wireless to be had but absolutely no time to utilize it! Not that I'm complaining, we saw some great stuff, spent great quality time with family from near and far and all in all had some spectacular times! What got shoved aside thanks to those long busy days was the blog...a girl's got to get her sleep when she's going from 7am to 10pm, dragging her kids with her, several days on a row.

Currently, like I mentioned, we're in DC. At a natinal park about 12 miles out of DC really. It's a hop skip and a jump away, but no wireless. And no time to utilize it even if we had it. Again, due to some amazing things we're seeing and doing, but LONG full days are not conducive to blogging. At least not in my world.


To wrap things up: no wireless + sheer exhaustion = limited blog updates using the iPhone....Which is a pain to begin with.

My apologies. We think we'll finish up here in DC sometime next week at which point we hope to have time to sit and chill on the outer banks of NC a bit before we head down to FL. Let's hope for some wireless!

Until then, I promise to do my best to update you as often as I can withot driving myself nuts doing it on the iPhone....

And so begins our trek eastward.....

The Badlands was the last piece of peace we had before our road trippin' adventure took us east.  From now until we get to our first destination, Buffalo, NY, it would be drive drive drive.....Yes, we tried to stop at some interesting places along the way, but those were short stops and our days were mainly spent in the truck and on the road.  We needed to get to Buffalo so we could then continue east to get to Maine by a specific date.  Time schedules suck.

Driving through central and eastern SD we saw a lot of this -



And a lot of this -



Sunflowers, or what's left of them, in case you can't tell.  The scenery was picturesque and beautiful yes, but it went on forever.......

Soon after crossing the Missouri river....



We by chance came across a little Lewis and Clark museum at a rest stop across the river!  We didn't know it then, but the bridge we took coming over the Missouri was the Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge, hence the museum.  Their party crossed the Missouri right here where we just did.  Pretty cool.

This was a good opportunity to stretch our legs and then eat some dinner.



As I said, the museum was pretty small, but enough to educate and entertain us while we enjoyed our much needed break from the truck.

Lewis and Clark of course were sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore the west, something Jefferson had always advocated.  His desire to have a nation spread from sea to sea was the driving force behind the expedition.  He gave very specific instructions that shaped how Lewis and Clark were to interact with the native population (with tremendous respect if you recall), specified how the expedition was to be conducted and recorded (it was a military mission) and stressed the scientific nature of it as well.

We saw what they brought with them to eat and what they hunted and found along the way,



We saw what they brought along to trade with the native population,



And learned about the 55 foot keelboat they brought along with them that still wasn't enough to carry all their supplies. This is the front end of a mock boat set up to look out over the river and the place they camped at, both coming and going.



Moving on down the road again, our next planned stop was Mitchell SD, home of the famous Corn Palace!  What's that you say?  Well, it's a CORN PALACE!  The murals on the facade are all made from corn: Husks, ears of different color, leaves and all.  Other grains are included as well, but it's mainly corn.  These murals are changed once a year and a new design goes up!  Inside is just a gymnasium, or so we were told, since we coulnd't really go in at this point.  You'll know why in a second.







Strange, but pretty cool.  Not to mention the amount of work that goes into doing this!  Wow!

So, the reason we couldn't actually go in was this -

Yes, the Village People!!!  No, those aren't really them of course.  Those are some girls dressed up to go see the show.  They really get in the spirit as you can see.  They're all, including our kiddos, posing for the YMCA song :-).

We just happen to hit Mitchell the day the university celebrated it's 125th birthday.  Apparently there was a huge parade in the morning and other celebrations going on all day.  This evening the Village People, yes, THE Village People, were performing in this small town and small venue!  One of the members of the group is a university grad and gathered up the old gang to come be part of the celebrations.  How funny is that?!

We spent about a total of 45 minutes in Mitchell and that was fine.  Just enough to see the palace and talk to some locals and former locals who were back for the reunion.  A nice little experience and another nice break from the truck.  Since the sun was setting already we were heading for the nearest Walmart to set up camp for the night.  I believe we ended up in Sioux Falls.

We are finding, that especially if we're just driving through a location trying to get to the next, a Walmart makes the most sense.  Easy in, easy out, in most cases, not to mention free and convenient.

The next day on the road was a long one, but we were rewarded with this glorious site after a long day's drive.....

COSTCO!!!!!!!!!

It's been 2 long months of being Costcoless and we all shrieked and cheered when I saw it on the map and then, when we saw it around the bend the shrieks got even louder!  :-)

We love us some Costco.  Who doesn't?!  It's pretty funny but it felt like coming home again.  No, I'm not getting sentimental about Costco, but it does feel like home since we shopped there all the time and actually like going there as family outing too.  Call us crazy if you wish......

Well, aside from the shopping the best thing about Costco is.......



The boxes of course!  Inventor was especially happy to have his fill of cardboard to build his various contraptions with again.  Who needs toys, even legos (gasp!) when you can have CARDBOARD!

Our stock of cardboard boxes and fresh fruits and veggies replenished (fridge and coolers jammed packed), we set off again.......

More Badlands to be had 10.2&3.10

A photo essay.

There were so many great photos taken that once again I find I just want to sit back and let them, mostly, speak for themselves :-).








Out in the Badlands the night sky is of course absolutely magical.  We pulled out our telescope and could clearly see Jupiter and 4 of its moons!  It was spectacular!!



Keeping busy in the car. I think this was actually taken leaving the park.








LOTS of running, climbing and exploring to be had out here!












A pretty little plant, a cactus I guess?



And of course, there was work to hand in and badges to be gotten -







All in all, Badlands National Park was a pretty great place to hang out in!

Minuteman oh Minuteman..... 10.2.10

What a combination, beautiful desert and the Cold War!  When we first came out here, we had no idea there was a missile silo to be seen, who would have thunk??  We knew of course about the history of it all, but coming across one and getting, almost, up close and personal with it?  Well, that was indeed a wonderful treat!  Not to mention it tied in real well with the intro to the Cold War we had at the air and space museum.

So what is this place?

Formally, it's the Delta-09 launch facility which held the Minuteman II intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile during the Cold War.  Missiles that were meant to only be used in retaliation.  In that sense, this facility, along with the other 999 like it spread across middle America, helped guard this country from a Soviet Attack.  Yes, they represented the potential for horrific destruction, but that threat, in reality, helped keep the peace during that period.

"The minuteman could be launched in a matter of minutes.  It would soon be soaring at speeds of over 15,000 miles per hour to strike targets six thousand miles away.  The threat of their explosive force started a new era of history, making a hot or "shooting" war nearly unthinkable."  (Text from the visitor center.)

The Minuteman program was authorized by Eisenhower in 1958 and began deactivating in 1991 with the signing of the treaty between Bush and Gorbachev.  In 1993 this site, along with others, was inactivated.  According to the treaty, all silos were to be emptied, sealed up and covered up.  Literally.  All but those designated as museums, like this one.

We began, as per usual, at the visitor center picking up our Jr. Ranger activities.  This is a National Historic Site, part of the national parks system so, it has its own 'stuff'.

At the center we also watched a brief introductory movie and spent quite a bit of time talking with the ranger/police officer on duty.




From there, we drove approximately a mile to the launch site out in the middle of absolutely nowhere......When they built these sites 50 odd years ago, the government just came in and announced to the local ranchers that they were taking some of their land and utilizing it for 'matters of national security'.....ranchers had no say in the matter.

At the time of course no one was allowed anywhere near the fenced area.  Deadly force was to be used without question......



Tours of the underground site itself are offered, but given the time of year, it's only offered once a day and they were already full for the time we were going to be there.  That was a huge bummer! Think how cool that would have been!  Remember that the underground site was only comprised of the missile itself (which you obviously cannot go down into) and the so called pod (not visible from above of course) where the 'minutemen' sit 24/7 ready to turn those keys.  Luckily we at least got to see the set up the other day at the air and space museum.

Here we are, peering down into the missile silo itself.  It is of course just a dummy now, but is identical to the real thing.









All in all, it was pretty neat, even if we didn't actually get to see a whole lot.  The whole notion is fascinating and the situation unfathomable.  A lesson in modern history, even for those of us who lived through some of it.

The Badlands are anything but 10.2.10

Wireless happy again!

Back to the timeline.......


We arrived at our campground in the Badlands at dusk.  Beautiful as it was seeing the magnificent colors at sunset, it was darn right glorious to wake up and see and feel this -



Crystal blue skies, crisp dry air (we miss our dry air, it really does have a 'crispy' quality to it) and gorgeous hues of gray, brown and orange painted onto the jagged peaks surrounding us.

Bikes were set out the previous night in preparation for what we knew would be a great biking location.  Our last campsite was not sadly enough.

Our surroundings were quite different from what we had experienced up 'till now.  No trees, no leaves, no green.  (OK, so there are a couple trees in these shots, but they're an anomaly!) We were, for the first time during our trip, in a real real desert.  As much as we love our forests, this was pretty awe inspiring in its own right.


After a little more carving of Mt. Rushmore, yes we're still doing it....



We headed over to explore the visitor center and pick up our Jr. Ranger booklets.


Here's what the Badlands are:

"Badlands National Park is famous for its spectacular rock formations, with vivid colored bands that can be traced from pinnacle to pinnacle.  The rocks were laid down by oozing mud, river floods, sands from an ancient sea, volcanic ash, and wind-blown dust for more than 70 million years.  Some thin bands are remains of ancient prairie soils, others are layers of river sediments that are hundreds of feet deep."  (Taken from the visitor center info).

Historically, the Lakota put up transitory camps here and used the area for hunting.  They called it 'white hills'.  French trappers are the ones who named it 'bad lands' since the sharp peaks and crumbling rock brought much frustration to them and their mission.  The Lakota began also referring to the area as such soon thereafter.

These 'white hills', or 'badlands', combined with the 'black hills' were at the heart of the lands set aside for the Lakota in the treaty of 1868.

The Lakota of course have their own explanation as to why the landscape looks like it does:  The well known water monster fought with the people causing a big flood.  The flood turned the people into the sacred pipestone and then the monster itself was also turned into stone and its bones are what we see now scattered in the Badlands.

One of the many amazing things about this place is the rate at which erosion takes place.  Like Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone, it too can change literally overnight.

Here you see a a US geological survey marker from 1959.  At the time they put it in it was of course flush with the rock surface.  It may be hard to tell in this picture, but when they dug this out 45 years later the rock receded about a foot thanks to the rain and the wind.  Pretty amazing when you consider that granite, like Mt. Rushmore, only erodes 1/10 of an inch per 1,000 years!!!  Talk about what a difference the geology can make!




Here's more of what we came up close and personal with at the visitor center -

The place's previous, prehistoric, inhabitants.  Like this ancestor of the pig -



The ancestor of the horse, a 3 toed creature about the size of a collie!  Various species of horse fossils were found in the area showing us that there were indeed horses here prehistorically.  However, those horse families became extinct about 10,000 years ago.  As we know, the Spanish then REintroduced horses to this area in the 16th century and those were the horses the Native Americans began to use.



Burrowing owls!  Who knew there was such a creature?!  I sure didn't.  They live in abandoned prairie dog burrows....

We learned how the grasses survive in such a dry climate.  They have some pretty long roots that reach all the way down to the little moisture there is deep deep down underground.  In case you were wondering.

This is Bigfoot, a Lakota leader.  Attempting to escape the US army he took refuge in the Badlands.  He, along with most of his people (including women and children), were killed at the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890.  From then on, the Lakota were forced to live on reservations, giving up their ancient ways of life, receiving government rations, and doing the best they can as farmers and ranchers.  A drastic change, to say the very very least, from the days of Lewis and Clark who were instructed at the time by Jefferson to make a good impression on the Lakota due to their "immense power".

What you see in the background are winter counts.  The Lakota kept track of important events in their lives by painting them onto buffalo hides.  Those were referred to as 'winter counts'.



Once we wrapped up with the visitor center we headed outside to explore the park -

Our very first encounter was with a small rattle snake in the road!  I was pretty cool. From a safe distance. Though when we drove by later we saw that someone had run it over :-(.



There are several short hikes one can take in the park (we need short since Whirlwind doesn't handle more than a few miles very well) and we began with the one with a very cool climb up a ladder.....



Yes, it was pretty steep, but with some words of encouragement and support all the kids, and the mother (!) managed to do it, up and down!  Upon seeing it I suggested maybe skipping this little adventure, but the kids would have none of it.  Glad I listened to them :-)



Here's proof we made it back down too.  No, Whirlwind did not climb down on his own, not to worry.



After climbing the ladder we were to head over to see a magnificent view but as we started out we came across a family of 4 with kids about the ages of ours who were heading back saying it was just to precarious kid wise.  So, after taking a quick peak at what lay ahead, we took our cue from them and headed back down.  Yes, we were all a bit disappointed but we had conquered the ladder and that was accomplishment enough, for some of us anyway.  Others decided to sulk a bit, but that's ok.

Getting over our little setback we continued to explore and run around.  It's amazing what kids find fascinating.



They spent lots of time investigating the ground, which was like nothing they have seen up until now.  The patterns and shapes formed by the cracks in the earth was a source for much entertainment.  Go figure.



One game we ended up playing was 'match the piece to a state shape'.  Again, it's amazing what can entertain for quite a bit of time......


The other bit of fascination was with these -

Kind of look like bee hives from a distance don't they?  Upon closer inspection though you can tell that they are actually bird nests! Instead of using twigs and branches, which are pretty scarce out here, they make them out of the mud!  Pretty cool.

We romped around the sandy limestone a bit more before heading to our next stop that day, the Minuteman Silo!  Who knew there were sooooo many out here once upon a time?!  More on that in the next post though.......