Geography Lesson Part 3 - The Badlands & Omaha

outside of rapid city is badlands national park...the formations were delicate pastels & my camera washed everything out to an even shade of taupe...

i'm still trying to understand the geology of the badlands...the contrast between grassland and badland was so distinct...absolutes like that fascinate me...

however, the little boys were bored with my enthusiasm...and they only got out of the car once, to use the restroom...soon after, we stopped at an authentic sod house and i was practically giddy, because i had always wanted to see one...


here is a link to the Prairie Homestead website so that you can learn more...i wish that the website had interior pictures, because my camera couldn't take pictures under those lighting conditions...

the left portion of the house has authentic sod walls...i think the ceiling was sod too, held up by beams...although if i remember right, the front wall was just wood...there was a front "room" that was essentially a kitchen...the back "room" was partitioned off by a curtain & it held a small bed with a quilt...the floor was dirt, with planks here & there, probably to cross mud puddles...everything was so dirty...i couldn't imagine living that way, but it was inhabited until 1949...my mother would have been 1 year old...absolutely mind-boggling...

the right side was a small shack that was later attached to the house...it was not made of sod, so the walls were only a few inches thick...it had a normal wooden floor and it seems to have been used as a parlor...it contained a little couch with many antiques in the room...a handful of linens, etc...stuff that would normally have been roped off, but was available for people to touch...i couldn't bring myself to do it...

the thing that fascinated me the most was that they had to cut a hole in the wall to make an interior doorway from the sod house to the shack...and because the sod wall was about 18 inches thick, the arch of the doorway lasted forever...it was too short to be a hall and too long to be a normal arch...to keep the sod from crumbling, they had wallpapered the opening with newspapers...they were very old...barely in the 1900's...i would have loved to read them all, but the boys were not enjoying themselves being inside of something so anti-modern...

having said that, the boys were absolutely fascinated with the white prairie dogs...many people in the west view prairie dogs as pests...and the sioux were going to poison a large colony, so the current owner of the sod house caught one white male and started a breeding program...now most of the prairie dogs around the sod house are white...it's not a blinding white, probably because they are always covered in dirt...they are very skittish & if you throw them a peanut, eventually they will scurry out to get it...(if you're patient)...on the other hand, the chickens are not afraid of anything & if they think you have peanuts, THEY WILL CHASE YOU DOWN...little boy #2 will attest that it's pretty darn freaky when you are being stalked by a chicken... : P

we wrapped up the vacation by stopping at the henry doorly zoo in omaha, ne...we had gone there several years ago, but the boys were young & there was too much zoo & not enough time...last year, we finished the zoo in record time (since their legs are longer)...the highlight was the "budgie experience"...which was an enclosure that easily contained at least 500 parakeets...

you could buy a tongue depressor covered with peanut butter & seed...

the boys had a blast feeding the budgies...after the zoo, we went back to the hotel for a swim...and the next day, we headed to iowa to spend (quiet time) with family & friends...

it was a good vacation...but it was a lot of driving...and i don't have any intention of doing that again any time soon...

Geography Lesson Part 2 - Rapid City

while in rapid city, we stopped to see mount rushmore...which looks exactly like it does in all the pictures that i've ever seen...


then i let the boys each pick 2 things to do...one picked stopping at a chocolate store and the "roo ranch"...

little boy #2 was lovesick...he adored his (sleeping) joey...

little boy #1 thought it was pretty cool too...

honestly, i wouldn't recommend the roo ranch...it was stinky, boring, & the employees were mostly apathetic...but for a fee (i think $10 per kid) each little boy got to hold a joey and to get their picture taken against a cheesy tourist background...but there were technical difficulties, resulting in little boy #1 being purple...which meant that they got to hold their critters for about 20 minutes, while the staff figured out that the printer needed a new toner cartridge...the boys didn't complain one bit... : )

the other kid picked the black hills museum of natural history...which was an interesting choice, since he's never liked science museums unless it was the hands-on type...but these were the researchers involved in the discovery of "sue" the t-rex which was the subject of a HUGE court battle...ultimately, sue went on display at the field museum in chicago & neither kid cared at all when i fawned over sue when we saw her in person...but they enjoyed hearing the story again, when we were in south dakota...i guess it was familiar to them this time, so it was okay...kids are weird sometimes...no pics of the museum, since none turned out...

that kid also picked reptile gardens...which was a combination zoo / carnival / disney-like theme park...it wasn't a true zoo, because most of the animals weren't in a natural setting...

for instance, these prairie dogs were as fat as sausages from all the peanuts...you could walk down some stairs and pop up in the bubble to get a close up of them...btw, prairie dogs are cute...but they apparently bite pretty hard...the bubble was a nice safety feature...

the sign actually encouraged gently scratching the tortoise's neck...

the animal shows were very educational & extremely funny, which is a hard line to balance...i would definitely recommend this place, but only if you do the shows...

all & all, the boys enjoyed themselves that day...

Geography Lesson Part 1 - Salt Lake City & Yellowstone

we went to yellowstone this summer...except, in my quest to take the boys to as many of the 50 states as possible, we went the long route...we stopped in saratoga, wy...(see the post from 11/03/2008 detailing those adventures)...

we also stopped in salt lake city, ut to see the great salt lake...but the drought was so severe, that the lake had receded at least 75 feet from its banks...so we couldn't get a very good look at it...that afternoon, we went to timpanogos cave...which seemed like a good idea...and while i realized that there was a 1 1/2 mile hike when i purchased the advance tickets...i somehow missed the fact that it was pretty much STRAIGHT UP A MOUNTAIN...i don't do well at high altitudes, but with a lot of encouragement from the boys, i managed to make it to the cave...

80% of the climb is complete...
can you see the shelter area a little to the right of the center of the picture?

using every photo op as a chance to rest...these are sedimentary layers...the tops of these mountains used to be the bottom of the ocean...it's been pushed up & folded by tectonic activity...

looking at a neighboring mountain...we are around 6700 ft above sea level...

using another photo op to catch my breath...

rare cave formations...the curly shapes are called helictites...


a large portion of yellowstone burned in 1988...the forest still hasn't recovered...

there were so many geysers & steam vents that the boys became blase about them...



although they were always fascinated by the streams...

and by the incredible power of the rivers...

ultimately, the boys decided that it's wrong to eat bison...

and that they should be free forever...

Geography Lesson - North Platte River

the north platte river begins in colorado and it flows north into wyoming, through a cute little trout fishing town by the name of saratoga...this town also happens to have a natural hot spring that flows into a sand bottom swimming pool, which sounds like an amazingly cool (no pun intended) experience...


unfortunately, the water was too hot and we ended up at the stream about 50 feet away, where several hot springs mix with the cool water...the mom said that the little boys should wear water shoes, but the mom doesn't know anything about anything and they insisted that they wanted to wear their sandals into the creek...which did not work out well, since the rocks were very slippery...ultimately, the mom went trudging back to the car to get their water shoes...

little boys changing into water shoes,
note the single sandal floating in the water between them...

yep...you guessed it...Little Boy #2 lost his sandal...by the time we noticed, his sandal was long gone, without any trace...after the north platte river leaves wyoming, it joins with the south platte river, meandering across nebraska, where it dumps into the missouri river...eventually the missouri empties into the mississippi...and we all know that the mississippi goes past st. louis on its way to the gulf of mexico...

after that, every time we crossed the north platte river, we waved goodbye to Little Boy #2's shoe...and we teased him mercilessly about how his shoe was going to beat us home...