National Parks and Tourist traps

So after 1300 miles of driving in 50 hrs Jess and I are still talking to one another. We saw 3 national parks, two national monuments, a few tourist traps and some gorgeous scenery!! Not to mention a few very large dead bugs on the wind shield!! They grow them big in Wyoming!! (Lynn, I need to borrow that book on how to identify bugs on your windshield!!)

Jess has a blog already online. You can check out some of her pictures from the trip on the top right side of the page.

Here are a few of mine. I will add a few more as I find the time. Just started a new guitar class tonight...need to get practicing!!

Devils Tower, Wyoming

Did anyone see Close Encounters of the Third kind??? Apparently it was the 3oth anniversary last year... Devils Tower was in the last few scenes of the movie.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm267423744/tt0075860

The Kiowa Indian Legend is that the Bear chased 7 Indian children to a rock that started to rise into the sky. The Bear clawed all the marks into the rock as it rose into the sky. The children are still in the sky as the "seven sisters" the Pleiades star cluster.

More Indian Legends found here

http://www.nps.gov/archive/deto/stories.htm




Then there is the geological Story! Igneous rock formed into these hexagonal columns called columnar jointing. There are a few different ways this was possible...if you would like to read more....here is the info.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/deto/geology.htm

Vic, sorry you weren't here!! She and I have been traveling the world discovering columnar jointing!! (Shenandoah NP, Ilse of Staffa in Scottland...still want to hit the Giants causeway in Ireland!)

Prairie Dogs around Devils Tower!!

Deadwood South Dakota is now famous for the show on TV!! It's where Buffalo Bill Died. Buffalo Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane are both buried there!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood,_South_Dakota

Apparently it was named because of all the local trees!!

Apparently there is more than one Wall street. Ones in South Dakota!!

Mt Rushmore, South Dakota

Funny how these two flags are right next to each other....

We walked a trail near the mountain and got some neat shots!!

This talus pile is actually from the blasting while "carving the sculptures". They used precise amounts of dynamite to carve the mountain.

The Crazy Horse monument

So the Indians have hired an artist who worked on Mt. Rushmore to "carve" a statue of Crazy horse. My parents said that they were just raising money 30 yrs ago. So far they only have the head completed. The artist has died and his family has taken over the task of carving the mtn in the background to look like this statue in the foreground!!


Mt Rushmore and Crazy horse were carved by blasting away precise amounts of the granite that form these mountains!! I love the expression on Crazy horses face here!!

http://www.crazyhorse.org/

Didn't stop at this tourist trap....this time. I remember this as a kid though!! My family drove west 30 years ago!! The scary thing is that this place has lasted that long!!

ICE CREAM!!!

So it is becoming a road trip tradition to stop and get chocolate peanut butter shakes to keep us awake on the long drives!! : ) I much prefer Dairy Queen to Sonic.




Wind Cave is most famous for their boxwork formations. They have a very extensive cave system in only a square mile underground. I think they are one of the largest cave systems in a square mile! The Box work formations are show below. Very cool looking. The cave was very long to walk, not as many traditional stalagmites and stalagtites as a typical cave on the east coast.

http://www.nps.gov/wica/

Waiting outside the cave for the tour to start.

This is the formation that the cave formed in. The Black hills is the name of the entire area of Western SD.



The ranger shows us the reason the cave is called Wind cave. When the barometric pressure is high winds blow into the natural entrance to the cave. When it is low the air blows out of the cave. He is using the ribbon to show us the wind is blowing into the cave today... We did not use this entrance to the cave!!



We used this one instead!! I have never seen a revolving door into a hill before!! They have an airlock system to protect the cave from too much air.

There was a lot to see on the ceiling of this cave!! Jess checking out the boxwork.

The ranger didn't give this a name so I called it the toasted marshmallow! : ) The background not the foreground!




Box work formation. Normally Stalagtites are formed from Calcium that dissolved in water in the cave and drips from the ceiling. In this case the calcite mineral formed in cracks in the limestone and then the limestone was dissolved away to leave the skeleton of the calcite in place on the ceiling of the cave!! It was very cool!! Apparently 95% of the worlds box work is in this cave alone!! Its not found in too many other caves. The ranger mentioned one in Yugoslovia that has some.

They call it Cave popcorn!! I still think it looks like barnacles.

Hmmm, a natural formation??

I am not used to being in a cave where you can see the layers of the rock.



We thought this was cool. Look closely at the buffalo on the left and the cave on the right.

Did anyone know that we have National Grasslands???? Apparently we do in Nebraska.

More scenery in Nebraska



More info on the website below.
http://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/