road trip recap: historic attractions (south dakota)

As we were zipping across South Dakota on our way to K's grandmother's house in Pierre, we stopped at several tourist attractions to break up the day.  First was the historic Dinosaur Park (est. 1936) in Rapid City, which was adorable.  They didn't even try to make the dinosaurs anatomically accurate, and they looked like something out of Saturday morning cartoons.  I do have a bit of a love for dinosaurs, though, so it was a fun stop.  We also had to visit Wall Drug, of course, which I didn't even know existed until we visited K's parents and they were talking about it.  I can't believe I hadn't even heard of this place! It's a giant roadside attraction that was also established in the 1930s and took off when Dorothy Hustead had the idea to give out free ice water to travelers.  The rest, as they say, was history.  Now the quaint drug store has ballooned into a billion-dollar-a-year kitschy tourist destination that is about as random as you can get--but definitely worth a visit!

road trip recap: little bighorn battlefield

This was one of the national monuments we stopped at only on a whim, and probably wouldn't have seen if it wasn't for our desire to get the most out of our National Parks Pass (that thing = amazing!).  I'm so glad we stopped.  So much of our country's early years was actually quite appalling, but it's not something you think about on a daily basis.  On this trip we were confronted a number of times with the consequences of the destructive influence and downright thievery of white settlers on native land, which made this battlefield, representing one victory in a vast history of defeat, seem all that much more meaningful (even if it was hard to ignore the fact that the land is owned by the federal government).

road trip recap: yellowstone national park (part ii)

Remember how I said that whenever there was a wildlife sighting the traffic was backed up for hours?  Well, a lot of the time we would look and look on our way through and see nothing of interest (one section of the road was backed up/blocked for a good 24 hours because of an eagle that we couldn't even see!), but sometimes we got lucky.  Like when we happened upon that bison leisurely strolling down the road toward us while a ranger attempted to encourage it off the road with his SUV.  It was adorable!  Another favorite was when we saw the group of bull elk hanging around one evening (also above), looking all majestic.  We ended up leaving the park at least for a little while each day, partly just to escape the mobs of people.  The first evening we had dinner in town and then went to a rodeo!  I'd never been to a rodeo before, so when we spotted the flyer in town I knew we had to go.  It was just a small local affair, but the bull riding was pretty cool to see, even though none of the riders could stay on long enough to win a prize.

road trip recap: yellowstone national park (part i)

You guys.  I thought Yellowstone was incredibly cool.  I think I may have a secret love of geology?  Anyway, the weird, almost Alien landscape of this enormous park absolutely fascinated me.  It really was like walking around on another planet at times (and the colors!).  Despite the fact that I loved the park, however, I definitely would not recommend going in the summer season.  Besides the fact that there were just SO MANY PEOPLE there, only one main road runs through the park (which is roughly the size of Connecticut).  This means that all of those people were on this one road, all the time... and whenever there was any sort of wildlife sighting, the traffic was backed up for an hour (at least).  So, bring a bike, actually--number 1 recommendation!  We got up really early our first full day there so that we could visit Old Faithful before the tour buses arrived on the scene.  It was kind of insane how quickly the attractions filled up later in the day.  We stopped at another site before going on to Old Faithful, and it was a beautiful, steamy morning, completely quiet, with only about a half-dozen other tourists around us at any given time.  When we drove by later that day the same site was so crowded it looked like people were standing in line.  Anyway, we got to Old Faithful and sat on the benches waiting for the geyser to get going.  The air was cool but the sun was warm, we were still able to get a seat right in front, and there was a really quiet, meditative calm over the crowd that made the whole thing feel very spiritual.  The awe was audible all around as the geyser gathered its strength and exploded into the air, and I even got a little teary-eyed!

My surprise love of strange geothermal phenomena definitely made Yellowstone one of my favorite parks, even though the smell of sulfur did begin to make me nauseous on our last day there...