Sight-Seeing

Our second day of driving took us through Kansas, Iowa, and South Dakota. Our main entertainment consisted of listening to newly acquired music on our ipods and updating our Facebook pages via our iphones. (And eating! But that's a different blog.)

Once in South Dakota, the sight-seeing began. Until we got to South Dakota. Behold the infamous Corn Palace!


Personally, I would have been more impressed had it actually been MADE of corn rather than just decorated with it.

There were a million signs for a place called Wall Drug and a dinosaur park and other kitschy locales, but by the time we passed by it was getting late and Jiro was conked out in the backseat. We got a hotel room in Rapid City, South Dakota, then set sail for Wyoming the next morning.

Wyoming had some really cool things to check out as well. First, the Vore Buffalo Jump. Native Americans chased buffalo off of cliffs to kill them back before horses and guns. The Vore Buffalo Jump is a sinkhole where archaeologists have found over 20,000 bison remains! Our resident archaeologist was thrilled.


The junior archaeologists were pretty excited too. It was interesting to learn how the Native Americans used every.single.bit of the buffalo. (Well, except the bones, I guess!)


Our next destination was Devil's Tower, best known for its appearance in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."


We didn't have time to climb all the way to the top (ha!), but the monkeys loved bouncing around on the rocks that surrounded the base. There were actually rock climbers on the Tower and we watched them in amazement through our binoculars.

The Tower is held sacred by many people, and you could see little prayer bundles everywhere.



Adjacent to the Tower was a town of prairie dogs. The monkeys loved them. Jiro said they looked like little bears, not dogs. We spent a good deal of time just watching them roam around and pop their little heads up.


I captured this dog on my "real" camera. Warren took pics on his iphone and the kids took pictures with their DSes. (What is the plural of DSi?) It was hilarious and obnoxious, but the dogs didn't seem to mind mugging for us.

The final fun of this leg was our drive through Bighorn National Forest. We actually drove over a mountain. It was gorgeous and we must have pulled over 20 times just to explore.



Read more about this part of our adventure in my column, Road trip a 'vacation' for a new generation.