MY MINNESOTA/SOUTH DAKOTA ADVENTURE - 2003!

I left Austin on Monday morning, October 13, on Northwest Airlines. We landed in Rapid City, South Dakota about 2:30 on a rainy day. I picked up my rent car & drove across town, out to Camp Michael Bed & Breakfast. My intentions were to go out to Mt Rushmore & the Crazy Horse Monument, but the weather was uncooperative. Since it was still daylight (even though there were scattered showers) I wanted to see some of the countryside, so they gave me a “touristy” route to drive through the Badlands National Forest. I got some good pictures of the trees, but the trees here were mostly pine (evergreen) or birch (Yellow). The leaves were starting to fall, but I did get some good shots. You can see them at the end of this story in the “TREES” section. I just combined all the tree shots in that same section.

Camp Michael is a small 2 story place on the edge of town. The 2 gentlemen that run it (Mike & Michael) were the perfect hosts. They cooked a home-cooked dinner and a LARGE breakfast. There was only 1 other guest, from Colorado, (it is the end of the season there, after all. The weather was fixing to change to that unimaginable time called “winter up north!”)

I got up early the next morning and headed out to Mt Rushmore. That is, I headed out after scraping the ice off my windshield. That nice Colorado guest was leaving for HIS days adventures at the same time & had an ice scraper he let me borrow. The trip was beautiful! The few photos do not do it justice. It is hard to capture the magnitude, the sheer beauty of all those green pine trees, yellow birch trees, and HILLS!!! In one of the pictures, compare the size of the hill to the telephone poles leading up to it! I never imagined all the things a tourist could do in southwestern South Dakota! There are caves, and museums, and monuments, and national forests, and state parks, and, and, and…!

On the way out, there is a Presidential Wax Museum. If you have visited some of my other trip pages, you will already know I have a weakness for wax museums – I HAD to stop! Unfortunately (or maybe FORTUNATELY for my reading audience!) I only took the digital camera in & couldn’t make the flash work, so only a few of the photos came out. Most tourist attractions were “Closed for the Season,” but this one was open.

Day 2 - MT RUSHMORE!

I headed the few miles on the Mt Rushmore. I stopped to take a picture where the road goes through a tunnel and a highway patrol stopped me. I apologized & said I was only stopped for a second to take a picture, he said that was fine, that was not way he had stopped me! It seems I was going 11 miles over the speed limit! He gave me a warning & told me to watch the signs in unfamiliar country! I thanked him PROFUSELY!

Mt Rushmore was breath-taking! I talked to a gentleman from California. He had gone to the Crazy Horse Monument the day before (when the rain had deterred me). It was SNOWING there then – glad I decided to wait!!! There were several people at Mt Rushmore, but it was not crowded. After staring in awe for awhile (& taking way too many pictures!) I headed out to Crazy Horse.

I saw a sign that said “Profile View” right outside Mt Rushmore, so I pulled into the next pullout (saw nothing) & the next (saw nothing) & the next (saw nothing). As I was leaving the 3rd, I looked in the OTHER direction & there it was! How did it get in front of me when I was leaving the monument I do not understand!

I am ashamed to say I did not know much about the

CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL!

before this trip. It has been in progress for a LONG time (& still has a long way to go)! In one of the photos, you can see a shadow-me that a nice lady took standing (dwarfed) next to the replica of the monument. The replica is 1/32 the size of the (eventually) finished Monument. You can see the monument in the background behind the replica. They have also build an interesting settlement for the tourists, with gift shops (naturally!), a museum, a short movie of the Monuments history, a working studio of the man behind the Monument with other statues that he has carved. A very educational interesting experience.

Even though there was much more I could have explored in this part of the world, I had obligations, so I headed east toward Minnesota along the southern edge of South Dakota, then noeth along the eastern edge. It was too late to continue on to my parents house, so I got a hotel for the night and headed out in the morning. I stopped at my sister’s in Wadena, MN first, and we had a nice discussion about life, etc.

I met my parents at the senior Citizens Center in Sebeka, MN for lunch. I then took a (SHORT) spin round the town (it doesn’t take long!) & headed out to meet them on the farm. I am going to cheat, & put some pictures I took of the farm in the photo page associated with this part of the story. These pictures were actually taken on my last trip there, but they give a good idea of what it is like there. After a shortened visit (due to having lost that half day due to the rain in South Dakota) I headed out to Minneapolis. I stayed with friends, and attended the Closing the Gap Assistive Technology conference.

Wednesday night he took me out to a very nice Italian restaurant. I felt the waiter was a little too cocky to be considered a good waiter, but the food (& the company!) was great! Thursday & Friday nights we hung out at his place, watched movies & TV, listened to music, and talked of politics & life. After the conference was out Saturday, I went to the

THE MALL OF AMERICA!

It is huge! I spent too much money there, but it was worth it! I went to Minnehaha Falls. It was sad, last time I was there it was beautiful and flowing mightily. This time it was a mere trickle. I guess they are in the midst of a drought too (as I write this, we are about 9 inches behind the yearly average rainfall ourselves.) I got many more photos of colorful trees. When you live there, I think you get jaded to the beauty, and when you move away you forget how absolutely breathtaking all the different colors are. I saw one area off the interstate that I wanted so badly to take a picture of. The underbrush was all red & it had these plumes like pampas grass flowing out of it. I nearly stopped on the freeway to get that shot, but was unsure if it was worth an accident or a ticket! Then I went and sat at a coffee house for a couple hours as the sun set and did some last minute studying for the test the next day. That night I went out to the MPLS Eagle to watch all the Minneapolis leather/muscle boys congregate for a couple hours. I was still back to my friend’s place before 1AM.

Sunday AM, I went to take the ATP test from RESNA. It was much harder than I hoped for, will have to wait until December os so to find out how I did. Afterwards, I drove around Minneapolis, took more pictures of colorful trees in their magnificent

FALL COLOR!

I drove past the house I lived in as a child, and looked for some other landmarks from those long ago days that I spent in Minneapolis. On the freeway, I saw a guy on a motorcycle pop a wheelie – the longest I have ever seen anyone do it!

I caught an afternoon flight back out of Minneapolis. I usually hate ending a vacation, but I was ready to get home after this one!

The fall color was SO spectacular!!

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© Copyright 2003 Patrick J. McDaniel

updated February 10, 2007