Church Ladies on the Loose--Day Four!

Woke up in Broken Bow pretty well-rested, ready for breakfast and to move on down the road. I thought I was on a pretty good streak, so for breakfast I enjoyed --

one more chicken fried steak! Are you surprised?! This part of the country really knows how to do meat and potatoes! I'll enjoy them here and get under control again when I make it home tomorrow--so soon???

As we were eating,  a group of guys wandered in for what seemed to be a cuppa coffee group, a men's gabfest. They reminded me of such groups I'd seen in Ravenna and other small towns. Sarah cleverly asked if I could take their picture and charmed them into saying yes! She said the blog would say we met them all dancing last night! THAT would've been fun; they were great guys.

Remember how we drove through darkness yesterday? This is what the car looked like this morning:

It was Bug City driving past all those marshes, though they were beautiful. (The windshield was worse but didn't show up for the camera.)

Broken Bow's downtown area has brick streets! Isn't that cool???? They're really darker than this, but the morning sun reflected off them.

It wasn't too far from Broken Bow to Ravenna, my Dad's hometown, and where Fern and Roy lived until a few weeks ago, and the first place I remember living as a very young child. Eager as I was to get there, the drive took easily twice as long as it should have because I kept stopping to take pictures--like these:

See why it took so long? But we made it:

I think we traversed every street on the west side of town, finally stopping to take pictures of my Grandma's house and Fern and Roy's (though it was once--a VERY long time ago--where my family lived, right next door to Grandma and Grandpa.

Had a poignant time at the cemetery:

My Dad always liked the view from out there. over the hills:

Off toward Kearney now, another ride that took much longer than it normally would, but isn't the country beautiful???!

Anyone know what this is??? We'd like to know.

Made it to the Archway Great Platte River Road Museum across I-80! Very well-done!

Aiiiiiiiieeeeee! be careful Sarah!

We're settled down now in Sterling, Colorado, our fourth state in four days. There are no photos from the time we left the Museum because we were caught in an incredibly dense rainstorm, so furious was it, we pulled off the road and waited a while, because of hydroplaning, the water was so deep! When the rain lessened, we drove, in just a few miles, to a completely dry road! 

Nice piece of meat for dinner tonight.

Church Ladies on the Loose--Day Three!

Awoke in Custer, SD--pretty setting in the Black Hills--found breakfast a ways down the road--my second chicken fried steak! (It was perfect, by the way.) The day before we'd been too late to see the progress on the Crazy Horse Memorial, which will be the world's largest statue when finished,  someday. They are working away at it, and it is impressive. Here is a view from a bit of a distance--look for a face facing the right side of the photo; it's very small--

Does this help?

How about this?

Impressive, very.

This is the model at the Visitor's Center. It was an excellent visit:

Off now to Custer State Park, fingers crossed to see some buffalo, and our wish was granted! 

Here is the sign of the day:

Duh! And they are really, really Big!!!

We saw a herd!!!

Not the specks on the hillsides, those are trees! But those lying on the flat between the cottonwoods, THOSE are buffalo, and there are more behind the cottonwoods too! Also a large and a small lying in the foreground on the left.

I do love the prairie:

Later along the Wildlife Loop we observed a car attacked by burros!!

That's what happens when you offer them food! The driver was cringing, shrinking away from a burro whose head was inside the car--duh! What do you expect? Silly people.

We preferred these three--off the road but near enough for a photo, and quite charming!

Several miles away:

Almost on the road, as you can see, and focussed on tourists out of their cars and approaching. I felt quite safe inside my car and ready to step on the gas! These fellows are HUGE!!!

We crossed into Nebraska watching for wildlife--one more sighting-- this pronghorn antelope:

And farther down the road and into the distant past--wait for it!--Boom, boom, boom, boom!!!

Ta-dah! It's Carhenge!

The High Priests (get it? On a ladder?!)

Repainting to cover graffiti--very sad--but the color looks great.

Great fun!!!

Planning the trip we forgot about moving into Central Time and so dusk came early over the SandHills--but it was lovely:

We had to drive the last 20 miles through walls of utter darkness, punctuated by oncoming headlights, but we arrived in Broken Bow safely. Nebraska is a beautiful state, but kind of sad, since this is my first trip here without Aunt Fern and Uncle Roy in residence. Though I just saw them, it will be lonely in Ravenna without them.

Enough of that, today was another splendid day! So much we saw and felt and will remember.

Church Ladies on the Loose--Day two continued...

I maligned Lusk Wyoming yesterday when I reported the town had only one stoplight--they actually have a second one down by the gas station--

Lusk is a sweet town, pleasant and clean, out on the prairie. It was lovely.

Our motel office and breakfast room was decorated with antiques, including this crazy quilt from 1913. Very nicely done, though somewhat faded as one would expect.

A truck trailer in Lusk was full and waiting to haul away these HUGE bales of hay, and here's one later on by the side of the road:

You lose the sense of scale when one is alone.

Driving north toward Devil's Tower, I revelled in the wide open spaces (Do you hear a chorus of the Dixie Chicks here?) Stunning land!! Miles of snow fences snaking across the hills, more windmills, surrounded by beauty.   Just feast your eyes:

 

I started to calculate how long it might have been since I first saw Devil's Tower peeking over the horizon, but the number was incredibly and depressingly large, so I won't include it; just know that I've been wanting to see it 'in person' for a very long time, more than fifty years! Can you even imagine that?

When I couldn't get the blog program to work last night, I wrote a little about Devil's Tower--how I had imagined the land around it was flat and instead found a mountain! We walked around it, uphill and down, gazing as often toward the forest as the monolith. I loved being in its presence! We saw several prayer cloths tied onto branches, supposedly by Native Americans who feel the site sacred--I agree. 

See how it rises up? You ain't seen nothin' yet!

  

 

 

See the prayer cloth in the trees?

You can see how Devil's Tower is the core of this mountain, with that mountain eroding around it. Someday it may well be sitting on the flat land I'd imagined. What a precious and beautiful place!!!

I was so pleased to finally see it--in person!!!

On we drove toward Mount Rushmore, though it was some distance away. Meals just hadn't worked out where and when we'd planned because of the great distances. So we stopped in Spearfish to replenish our potassium following the exertion of our walk:

Just a clarifying note: the banana was split and surrounded by--actually buried in--ice cream!!! DQ really knows how to come through in a pinch!

Spearfish Canyon was spectacular with golden leaves among the green on the tall hillsides. Unfortunately we couldn't stop and take pictures--few turn-outs--and the color was so dispersed among the green hillsides. Here's a glimpse though:

Down the road we saw this lovely lady--

with her baby hidden from view.

Just miles away we saw George peeking out of the shadow--

Finally we located the entrance to Mount Rushmore and I saw the second long sought-after sight:

 photo a little hard to see in the afternoon shade, sorry. It wasn't hard to see there! Still a thrill though!

Amazing and wonderful!

What a glorious day!