Category: USA

Crazy Horse Memorial

Crazy Horse SD – September 2021

Crazy Horse Memorial
As designed, this is what the Crazy Horse Monument will look like when complete. The effort is dependent on sufficient funding, which is not available at this time. Projected completion date is undetermined.
There is an Indian Heritage museum at the Crazy Horse site. It contains many artifacts. These are a pair of moccasins hand made by Grandma Lone Wolf from SD in the 1920s.
Conchita Pueblo Drum by Red Bird from NM.
Beaded Buckskin dress from the 1890s.
Headdress
Birch bark canoe, sealed with pine pitch and treated with pine pitch.
Thunderbird and Killer Whale Totem. The legend goes that the killer whale (orca) swam into the bay one day and scared off the salmon, so the people began to starve. The people called out to the Thunderbird for help. The Thunderbird swooped down and picked up the killer whale with its claws and took it out to sea. The salmon soon returned and the people were no longer hungry.

Buffalo!!

Wind Cave National Park SD – September 2021

So I was hoping I’d get to see a buffalo when we went to South Dakota. Well, I saw thousands! It is amazing for an east coast guy to see!

My first buffalo sighting!
They do not seem to care if cars come by.
This one looks like he was posing for me!
And of course there are many prairie dogs. They do not seem to be afraid of people.
This one was definitely posing for me!
Buffalo at sunset.

Toadstool Geologic Park

Harrison NE – September 2021

Toadstool Geologic Park is a collection of badlands formations found in the Oglala National Grassland of Nebraska. The rock formations found in this park formed 38-24 million years ago and are related to the same rocks in South Dakota’s Badlands National Park. These parks also share many fossil animals, like ancient dogs, horses, and rhinoceroses. Many of these fossil animals went extinct and do not have modern analogues. Perhaps one of the most exciting preservations in Toadstool Geologic Park is the .75 mile-long trackway that reveals an ancient pursuit of hungry entelodonts chasing two species of rhinoceros down a stream channel. (Information from NPS site – I couldn’t remember all that!)
Replica of a sod house built here in 1930.
Inside of the sod house. This replica was rebuilt in 1984.

Carhenge

Alliance NE – September 2021

This is one of those quirky roadside attractions you see across the US. Obviously a takeoff on Stonehenge, this site has actually become one of the top things to see in Nebraska according to many travel sites.
Sunflower field outside Alliance NE.
Sunflowers

Scotts Bluff National Monument

Scottsbluff NE – September 2021

Scotts Bluff was another significant landmark on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails, as well as for Indians in the centuries before American settlers came to the area. The bluffs are situated 800 feet over the North Platte River.
Overlooking the city of Scottsbluff NE from the top of the bluffs.
This trail leads to a cave.
The view of the bluffs from a golf community in the city.
This is a sugar beet processing plant in Scottsbluff.
These are sugar beets.