Northern Tier States Tour: Day 7

With time in Minneapolis, the day was set aside for some culture, beginning with the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden adjacent to the Walker Art Center in downtown.

The Famous Cherry-on-a-Spoon

Cool Sculpture, I'd Say

There were good and engaging exhibitions at the Walker as well, although photography was not permitted. So the shot from the Walker is from the upper terrace, where there were nice views of Minneapolis on a gorgeous September day:

Downtown Minneapolis Skyline

The last bit of culture obtained while in Minneapolis was to find the Mall of America in the suburb of Bloomington, just to claim I'd been there.

Northern Tier States Tour: Day 6

The total thrust of this day was to drive the heck across North Dakota (another new state for me, my 46th to visit) and get to Minneapolis (or at least to the suburb of Bloomington), where the trip would play itself out. This was an all-day hike, mind you.

Crossing the Montana/North Dakota Border

Northern Tier States Tour: Day 5

Wednesday morning dawned sunny and beautiful again, and it was time to depart the Hotel Alex Johnson and set off on a massive drive, with the endpoint a roadside Comfort Inn in Glendive, Montana. First, a stop in Sturgis, because it's there:

Also passed through Deadwood, SD, but only drove around downtown and looked around without making a stop. From there, it was a gorgeous drive and not far to the Wyoming border:

…and on to Devil's Tower National Monument, the nation's first designated national monument, at that. This creation is just insanely marvelous, a weirdly beautiful formation that compels the mind to contemplate awesome forces played out in super-slow-motion over millions and millions of years. I could not make wise choices about which pictures to put up here, so this is what you get:

Northern Tier States Tour: Day 4

The final day in Rapid City was a bit less planned, because yesterday was more full than I'd thought could be managed. That meant there was complete freedom to take a driving tour on a couple of remarkable highways/byways here in the Black Hills. The first of those was the Needles Highway, which winds up through Custer State Park and allows you to take in these beautiful mountain and hill formations. They're not called The Needles for nothing. Perhaps the most famous in here is the Cathedral Spires. This was not a great weather day, at least for sunshine as had been the case the other days thus far. So the pics are only so good.

The other byway I explored was Iron Mountain Road, which was also very cool. It is known for a couple of key features, in particular: tunnels were created to give drivers a framed view of Mount Rushmore, and engineers were then directed to create the roads that would connect them; and pigtail bridges, where the engineers created a curly-cue turn that routes the road under itself in order to navigate some of the tight topography they had to work with. I didn't get a good vantage point on the highway for photographing those, but there are cool pictures of them online.

Finally, that route did offer some great distant vista views of Mount Rushmore, and so I snagged quite a few shots of that from different overlooks.

The Hotel Alex Johnson does have a rather cool two-level rooftop bar, and that was the ending point of each day in Rapid City.

Northern Tier States Tour: Day 3

What a treat it was to arrive late yesterday afternoon in Rapid City, SD, and to find that the historic Hotel Alex Johnson was going to be a great choice for the next three days.

First tourist stop of the day: Cosmos Mystery Spot, sort of like Mystery Hill up in Blowing Rock. Something strange about the gravity or mineral concentrations, with a healthy dose of carnival set-up thrown in to make it all too real (I was rather disoriented the rest of the day).

In Keystone, SD, there's a gallery and film about Robert Borglum, the sculptor and visionary behind the carving of Mount Rushmore. He also created this bronze sculpture of a seated Abe Lincoln, a copy of which now sits in front of this attraction:

Mount Rushmore is pretty darned amazing, and it is so cool to have finally made it there to take it all in. Or to take it in as best as one can, realizing it's really very awesome. Also, discovered that having a National Parks annual pass is only good for entrance fees (and sometimes for discounts on other fees), and that doesn't cover the charge to park at Mount Rushmore.

Also awesome, but a long, long way from completion, is the Crazy Horse Memorial. The plans for this are so grand, and it's already been about 50 years, that I'm not sure it will even be ready for my great-great grandchildren. But what a vision!

From there, it was on to Jewel Cave National Monument, where again my annual pass didn't even get me a discount on the ranger-guided tour. I'm glad to have visited this place, but I'd take Luray Caverns or Mammouth Cave over this. Still, the chances are good that by the time they finish exploring it, Jewel Cave may be considered the largest in the world. 

Northern Tier States Tour: Day 2

Awoke in Sioux Falls and hit the road. First stop, on a whim: Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, SD (Exit 374 on I-90). And it proved to be quite worth it. Here's a sample:

Next was the world-famous Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, but I thought that was a waste of time. Yes, interesting to create this whole art-y facade using corn and corn stalk, but it's just a civic center. You don't know until you go, though.

On down the road, it was easy to get pulled in by the Badlands Petrified Gardens, which gave me my first real chance to see and feel petrified wood. And there was a fair bit of it there. However, the stop was soured by the Biblical Timeline that loomed over the scientific reality of the specimens while trying to sell a fairy tale about creation.

Quite a ways along, there was a scenic view pull-off for travelers to take in a portion of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, which is hard to really capture with a two-dimensional photo. Here's an attempt, nonetheless:

There is a terrific loop road through the Badlands National Park, and it gives you a chance to head into an absolutely unreal landscape. It looks and feels like it could be another planet. Since the day offered picture-perfect weather, I tried to snap some perfect pictures. They are decent, but really: you had to be there.

With the mostly good stops on the long drive across South Dakota from Sioux Falls to Rapid City, there was at least one other pointless stop: the world-famous tourist trap known as Wall Drug. Like our nearby South of the Border, billboards begin hundreds of miles away and appear to taunt and tempt and amuse you every few miles. After hearing of it and seeing bumper stickers advertising it on various cars on the east and west coast, it seemed necessary to check it out firsthand.

What a waste of very good time. But at least now I know.

Why I'm Not Cooking Dinner Tonight

St. Croix River, Hudson WI
11 a.m. CDT

US 69, Minnesota/Iowa Border
1 p.m. CDT

US 169, Iowa/Minnesota Border
2 p.m. CDT

Interstate 90, Minnesota/South Dakota Border
4 p.m. CDT

The Airplane Dog

That Cyprus is a spry and athletic little mutt, although I've seen much more energetic and sporting dogs than she. Still, she's got some classic musculature, and she can pull on a leash something fierce. Of late, she's put that physicality to work jumping up on the rear retaining wall, initially because that's where she knows the squirrels go, but lately because of something else that must be lurking down in the broken bricks and such.

And when she's especially intent on whatever she's smelling or seeing, she'll show you why my education colleague Jeff Means refers to her as an "airplane dog." Apparently his dad always used to say that when referring to dogs where you could see the whole plane. (That works better spoken, so that you can get the phonetic joke.)

Meal No. 348: Indonesian Pork

Boston Butt pork shoulders were on a good special at the Harris Teeter recently, so they've ended up on the menu at the Roediger House. This was another new recipe for me, and I'm not sure it was all that glorious, but it was still pretty good eating. This is called Indonesian pork, cooked in the CrockPot, served over Carolina rice with traditional green bean casserole alongside.

The NKOTB crew was on hand last night to take part, which made it all that much better.

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"Indonesian Pork," from Mable Hoffman's Crockery Cookery. 1995. p. 95.

New Kids on the Block

This summer, the Roediger House got to expand its family just a bit, when some of the new Master Teacher Fellow graduate students in Wake Forest University's education program managed to find their way here. Thanks to the introduction by Bradley Phillis, MA.Ed.'07, of his brother Ben to the RoHo, who then brought along a couple more members of his cohort (Emily and Chris), there have been quite a few fun and festive nights this summer. Glad these kids are around for the coming year.

Miranda Is Now Dakota

Last week, I blogged about the pictures of Cyprus's offspring that Erin from AARF had sent to me. Those are some mighty adorable puppies that Cyprus gave birth to, back before she was adopted into the Roediger House.

Adoptions sometimes don't work out, for one reason or another, and one of those pups (who had been named Miranda) was returned to AARF. She sports a new name now: Dakota. Erin says she's going to foster Dakota herself and get an idea about what she's like and her personality and such, so that later a good adoption match can be made.

In the meantime, while I have no interest whatsoever in bringing a second dog into the Roediger House, I can't help but hope and wish that someone I know will be the one to ultimately adopt this precious pup.

Any takers out there?

Meal No. 347: Chicken, Mushroom, & Rice Casserole

With a few days of work in Virginia scheduled this coming week, I prepped a simple casserole dish early Sunday afternoon for a late afternoon baking and eating. Not much to this casserole: you throw just about all the ingredients together and then toss it into a baking dish and give it a good half hour in the oven.

After cooking, it gets about five more minutes with a layer of shredded cheddar cheese on top. Then, serve it up! It helped me hit the road ready and rarin' last night on my way up to Shenandoah County.

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Recipe from The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever, by Beatrice Ojakangas [2008], p. 164.