home again, home again jiggity jig

    The day started early, as I was able to pick up my sister at 8am, and head for home. We were raised not to take the same way twice, so we went home via Nebraska instead of I-25. I packed up most of the car the night before, so that I could get out early. It was easy going through the rural hills of South Dakota to the Pine Ridge Reservation and the Re-Member location. 

    My sister was ready to go upon my arrival, and we headed out. She caught me up on all the things she had done during that week, and I told her what I had been doing (for the most part). We enjoyed the scenery, and eventually grew quiet. Until, I was driving along a 2 lane highway in Nebraska, and I looked to my left. What the heck was that? My sister read the sign as I was wondering what it was, and I found the nearest spot to turn around. 

    We had found CARHENGE!! Out in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, we came across this place where Stonehenge was made of cars painted grey and there were other car sculptures out there. We got out of the car, used the restroom, and began our exploration of Carhenge. It was corny, and yes! it IS on the roadside america list of curiosities and oddities, but I figured my sister would be too tired to go out of our way for too many things. Luckily, it was just there. We toured the location, bought our souvenirs, and got back on the road heading south.

    As we drove, we watched roadside signs for more interesting things to visit. On the way up, I had mentioned stopping to see Scotts Bluff National Park, and so we did have that as a small target on the route home. We passed through various little towns with cool little chapels and a train depot/museum, which was not open. Eventually, we noticed a sign for the Pony Express and for Chimney Rock NHS. We decided to check both items out, and get me more stamps for my National Park passport.

    From Chimney Rock, we made our way to Scotts Bluff, where we parked, used the restrooms, wandered through the historical information in the visitor center, and then wandered outside a bit. It appeared that the best thing to do was take the short drive to the top of a butte and check out the views from there. So, up we went with my sister gripping the dash and hanging from the "oh shit" handle of the car (she likes to be in control of the car when climbing up roads without guardrails). 

    At the top of the butte/bluff, we checked out the view, and happened to notice people walking a trail down below us, which seemed to disappear through a tunnel in the bluff. We decided we needed to check it out. In true outdoor enthusiast fashion, we headed out on this hike of unknown length without water or any of our 10 essentials we take when hiking the Rockies. Since we were at the top, of course the path lead us down, and we decided we would just go down to the tunnel and then back up; however, as we descended, we talked about one of us walking to the bottom and the other driving. It ended up that my sister would walk down (which was better in the end because I like taking photos while I'm driving sometimes, and she is anxious when not in control), and I would drive down to the visitor center and pick her up. 

    Before I headed down in the car, I completed the loop trail of the top taking in the views from the various designated points. It was very pretty and you could see for miles. On the way down, I paused, checked my rearview mirror, took a couple photos of the tunnel and the road, and then continued the rest of the way to the visitor center to get my sister. It was a neat and free park that I would say does not see the tourism that other national parks do, and I think it should. I could have explored a bit more, if I had the time. 

    Back on the road towards home, we enjoyed singing out loud, cussing at the traffic, and got the joy of seeing a double rainbow as we came back in to Colorado. I guess Colorado really is colorful. We made it to my sister's place in Highlands Ranch in time to pick up her youngest for a quick dinner at Wendy's before I headed home to my husband. Overall, it was an amazing trip full of adventure, information, and experiences.

my child is engaging with the weird creepy lady

    Waking up this morning was a little challenging, but luckily, I really had nothing major planned. With all our visits to the Black hills over the years, I have driven past Reptile Gardens hundreds of times, and wondered if it was as cool as it looked from the outside. Knowing nobody would be up for going except me, I figured now was as good as time as any. So, I woke up, ate some food, shook out my tent from the wet and dirt of Glacier, let it dry in the warm sun of the morning, and then prepared for a day at the reptile gardens. 

    Heading out from the hotel in Hot Springs, SD, I again drove past the president heads and towards the black hills. I made my way to the Reptile Gardens, parked the car, and wandered in to buy a ticket. This place did not require reservations, and I had no trouble getting in without. 

    With my ticket in hand, I started through the grounds, marveling at the gardens, the animals, and all the people with kids. I saw amphitheaters for the snake show and the gator show. Noting the time of the presentations, I wandered around to take in more before hand. I saw a small contained prairie dog village with new pups. I saw large tortoises wandering around in what appeared to be a petting zoo setting. 

    Eventually, it became time for the snake show, and I made my way to the top of a set of bleachers and sat down. The area around me filled up with families full of children, some happy, some not so happy. One family sat in front of me with a small sullen little girl of maybe 5-7, who as she sat, looked back at me to make sure she was not keeping me from being able to see as her little sister sat on her father's lap. A father and his 2 kids sat next to me, and the daughter said hi as she sat down. The little girl sitting on her father's lap would smile and say hi occasionally throughout the show.

    The show consisted of a young looking boy, who opened with a joke about his age..."I bet many of you are wondering how a 12 year old got the privilege of playing with these dangerous snakes. Jokes on you, I'm 13." The first snake he brought out was a non-poisonous snake, per the young man, which was lucky as it continuously turned and struck the gentleman in the arm and hand to the point he started bleeding. It was then that the young man decided to put the snake away. The final few snakes he brought out were less aggressive, which was good since they were all poisonous. Overall, he did a great job teaching us all about the different snakes. Later, I would learn most of his presentation came from the signs in the building that housed all the reptiles. Either way, it was still good.

    Once the show was over, I filed out with all those families and kids, and headed to get something to eat for lunch before the gator show. Well satiated, I again tucked up into the bleachers for the gator show and was surrounded by exceptionally kind and well mannered children and their parents, who were maybe less aware than their children or maybe concerned about the strange woman talking to their children. Hey! They approached me. I think kids can see I'm just a big child at heart. Anyway, the gator show was presented by the same gentleman who presented the snakes. All I could think about was the bleeding hand wound provided by the snake show a few hours earlier. The young man stated he was only 2 weeks old in handling the gators and asked we let him know if there was danger lurking. That was great fun for the kids in the audience and great concern for the adults watching this young man get surrounded by gators. He survived and so did the rest of us. 

    As those were the only 2 shows available, I spent the rest of my time wandering through the snake/reptile exhibits in the reptile house as well as wandering through the bird area and testing my nerve with free range birds. Thank goodness those birds were well behaved and not flying at my head. Phew. 

    Having covered the entirety of the Gardens, I wandered outside and across the parking lot to the Dinosaur museum and Doll/Toy Museums (you get 2 for 1, so why not). Of course, I could not refuse the dinosaurs, and I enjoyed wandering through there as a little boy was going through with his family, and happened to quiz me on some of the dinosaur names. At one point, his mother asked him the name of a dinosaur and he stated it was Chickenuggasaurus - larger than T-Rex, can eat 3 T-Rex at once. I laughed at that as did his mother. He caught up to me at various points throughout and would tell me about whatever dinosaur I happened to be standing next to at that time. I still think I need to fact check some of the things he was telling me. 

    The dinosaur museum is not very big, and getting the Toy museum along with it, I wandered over and through. Lots of really old toys (from before my time) to some within my childhood time. There were creeping clown dolls and then the indian dolls that made me think of my sister. I was never allowed to touch her cool indian dolls growing up, and it looked like I would not be able to touch these ones either as they were behind glass. It was neat to wander through. They had a gift shop area, where I looked for a fire truck for my nephew, but had no luck finding on that was small enough, age appropriate, or the right price (cheap!). So, I headed out from there and back to my hotel.

    Along the route back to my hotel, I stopped at Candyland (duh! I run on sugar). It was interesting and scary. They had miniature golf with unnatural blue water running through it and Hershey bar creatures smiling at you. I had already learned at the dinosaur museum that playing miniature golf by myself was kinda lame, so I didn't even ask to do it at Candyland. I purchased a few items, and then headed on along the loop.

    Because the black hills just seems like a large series of loops, I once again passed the Smokey Bear wood carving. This time, I stopped for longer and took more photos of the various wood carvings as well as what I could see from the window of the teddy bear museum, which was not open for visitors. 

    Finally, I made it back to the hotel, after stopping for Dairy Queen. I packed up everything except what I was planning on wearing home, and snuggled into bed for the night. I needed to be well rested for the drive home tomorrow.

learning life is about reservations

    Today, I headed for Wall Drug, the Badlands, and settled on the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. Upon arriving at Wall Drug, I found it over crowded with people and difficult to find a parking location. So, I gave up and returned towards Rapid City. As I travelled back that way, I remembered a failed attempt at visiting the minuteman missile national historic sites with my mom and husband last October. With that plugged into good old Google Maps, I headed for a different adventure. 

   Before visiting the Visitor Center for the Minuteman Missile NHS, I stopped for gas just south of the highway. It was a big tourist travel plaza and gift shop with a prairie dog town in the field next to it. I wandered through the gift shop finding nothing I needed or wanted. Then, I wandered out to look at the prairie dog field, and to watch the tourists. I was flabbergasted by the people wandering around in the field and allowing the critters to climb on them and such. All I could think about were all the colonies of prairies dogs in the Denver area that were exterminated due to having fleas carrying the black plague. You can't tell me the South Dakota prairie dogs do NOT have those fleas? 

    After totally grossing myself out with watching the antics of the tourists and these prairie dogs, I ventured to the visitor center and toured the museum information. It was scary how some of the stuff could be prevalent to school shootings today; e.g., Duck and Cover. It was also interesting to learn about them putting nuclear missile silos in the land given to the Lakota Sioux Tribe many years ago and the testing done in the area, which caused some health issues for many of the prairie folk during that time. Once I had learned all I could from the visitor center, I picked up a few tidbits from the gift shop, and headed out to see the inactive silo on a self guided tour, and to learn that the other one is by reservation only, and there were no more slots available for the day. 

    The inactive silo location with the self guided tour was pretty neat, and not very busy. It told of the history and the regulations with Russia and the U.S. I enjoyed wandering around looking out over the expanse of land and imagining what it was like during the height of its use. While at the silo location, I slowly wandered back to my car as I was being dive bombed by red wing blackbirds. I think the natives were trying to tell me something.

    Upon leaving the Minuteman NHS area, I decided to try and find one of the roadside america items just up the road. On the first pass, I missed the exit. So, I took the next exit, where I found myself on Big Foot Road. For my birthday, my friends gave me a bigfoot call whistle/kazoo, and so I of course was ecstatic to stumble upon the road. A necessary photo was taken and sent to them. 

    That was basically the morning. I headed back in to Rapid City area to hit another roadside america curiosity and oddity, the largest bronze Big Mac before heading on to other curiosities and oddities and a tour of the Black hills. Traveling alone, I have found that I get up early, visit places I want to see quickly, and move on to the next item. I'm always amazed how much I can cram into a day, when I'm willing to sit in the car for awhile. 

    Because I had previously done The Mystery Spot in St Ignace, MI and Mystery Spot (no The) in California, I knew I HAD to do Cosmos Mystery Area. The one in Michigan was one that I had grown up seeing signs for and went one other time with my mom and sister. So, when I stumbled upon the California one in April, I simply had to stop. That one was rather run down and was a self guided place. This time, I had been through the black hills a few times with people that I am certain would not have enjoyed stopping at Cosmos. So, alone and with nothing better to do, I stopped. 

    Online, it said I should have a reservation, but I decided to wing it and pray I could get in. Admission was no problem. I was the first one there for my tour time, and then it filled up with large families from there. The tour guide was great and quirky, which I enjoyed. She gave plenty of time for the kids of all ages to explore and try the different items before moving us on to the next part of the tour/story. At the end, she offered to take photos of people standing on the cabin steps, but this came with a sneak photo she took of herself, while I got situated on the steps. Pretty sneaky she was, but that made the experience all the better. 

    From Cosmos, I headed out to see the other roadside america curiosities and oddities I had come up with, and had never really paid much attention to before. I don't know how many times I have passed by the Largest Smokey the Bear, but this time I stopped and took photos. Next door to that was the teddy bear museum, which I think I had peeked in the windows of before with my in-laws, but actually took time to walk around this time. This was on the way to check out the winery and brewery along the way.

    In October, when my mom was with us, she noticed the winery made Red Ass Rhubarb wine, and wanted to acquire some; however, the liquor store in Deadwood did not open until much later. So, she did not get a chance to buy herself a bottle. Thus, I went to the Prairie Berry Winery with the intent to buy my mom a bottle of the Red Ass Rhubarb wine. Once inside the winery, I noticed they also had a Rosy Ass Rhubarb, and that is when I decided I needed to sample. I'm glad I did because I found I liked the Rosy better than the Red, but I bought a bottle of each for my mom to try. 

    From the winery, I wandered down to the neighboring Miner Brewing Company to sample some of their beers, as most of my visits found the brewery closed along with the winery. The service was so so until I started talking to a regular customer. Eventually, I broke away from that conversation and headed down the road a little bit to the Firehouse Brewing Company's Smoke Jumper Station for lunch and a beer. With my nephew's graduation from Fire Academy occurring upon our return from this trip, I decided to purchase a couple wines and a cool 32oz growler for the occasion. After lunch, it was a visit to Sick & Twisted Brewery for a beer before grabbing dinner at Mt Rushmore Brewing Company.

    Sufficiently/Safely lubricated and fed, I headed back to my hotel for the night. The day taught me that somethings needed reservations like Glacier NP or the Minuteman Delta-01 location, but Cosmos suggested a reservation and didn't really need one. After a few beers, I began to have fewer reservations talking to people and learning about them, the area, and some other places to visit while I was in the area. Back at the hotel, I looked at brochures, and made a plan for the next day before falling asleep with the TV on.