About Us
We are a brother (Detroit, MI) and sister (Houston, TX) who love to travel together to parts unknown. This year my sister flew into Detroit and we began our journey West. Stops include Davenport, IA, the Amana Colonies in Amana, IA, Marengo, IA, Des Moines, IA, Omaha, NE, Grand Island, NE, Rapid City, SD, Sioux Falls, SD, several cities in MN including Mankato, MN, Wisconsin Dells, WI, Marinette, WI, Mackinaw City, MI and back to Detroit.
We are also stopping for selfies and pictures along the way at some very interesting and unusual out of the way places that you will see in the blog. Enjoy!
So far we have walked up the equivalent of 21 floors of steps, taken over 9,394 steps and walked 3.4 miles and the day if NOT done yet.
We started the day by driving to Mt. Rushmore and that is where the majority of steps occurred. After taking some awesome pictures of Mt. Rushmore, we took the trail that passes under Mt. Rushmore. You can get many different angles of shots on the trail but it involves going down and up many steps.
Halfway, there is a visitor center where they have a bust of Lincoln that the artist used while carving out the actual face. Apparently, they lowered it down and he used that as a model for the real thing.
There was also a replica of the tunnel that is inside Lincoln's head where many documents are archived.
On the way down the mountain, we stopped at a wood worker's stand where he makes incredible wooden things with a chainsaw and other tools.
Next we did some geocaching in South Dakota. We found three and signed the logs. Also, the other day we found a Travel Bug in a geocache in Iowa. When you find of of those, you take it with you and log that you found and took it on the geocaching site. Then you insert it into another geocache preferably a long way away from the previous location. Let's see, Eastern Iowa to Western South Dakota is a good move for that one!
 |
| Travel Bug inserted into its new home in another geocache |
We also visited Dinosaur Park in Rapid City. Someone created all these cement dinosaurs and made a park out of it. The park is free to walk through and they encourage you to climb on them. These are mostly life size replicas and are huge.
After driving to Deadwood, SD, we did some geocaching and then visited the cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and many more are buried.
Also, while we were in Rapid City, we saw an upside down rainbow. We actually got a pretty good picture of it.
Circumzenithal arcs have been described as an “upside down rainbow” or “a grin in the sky.”
Fun Fact: Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed in 1879. He was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Deadwood, SD. Admission is $2.00 per person to take a walking tour. They give you a map of the cemetery along with the location of all the famous people buried there. People also leave bottles of whiskey at the foot of his tombstone shown below.
Fun Fact: Calamity Jane is buried right next to Wild Bill Hickok. Her dying wish was to be buried beside Wild Bill Hickok! She is buried within an arm's reach of Wild Bill.
Also in Deadwood, there was a scale where I weighed myself. The picture doesn't show my actual weight thank goodness!
Tonight I drove back to Mt. Rushmore to see the night lighting ceremony. The park ranger gave a talk, there was a nice movie about the four men on Mt. Rushmore (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt), then we sang the Star Spangled Banner, Mt. Rushmore was lit up, everyone took pictures, all branches of the Service were recognized and then 7 members of the Service from the audience lowered the flag, folded it and presented it to the park ranger. During the lowering and folding of the flag, you could hear a pin drop. It was an honor to be there.
No comments:
Post a Comment