This post is a little late, but I figured I should finally get the photos up.
In December we had to leave the country so that I could renew my visa on the way back in. So we decided to go to Dallas, Texas for the weekend. It seems like a long way to go for 2 days, but the flights were actually cheaper to go there than closer places like Chicago or New York - go figure. There isn't actually that much to do in Dallas, so it is probably good that we didn't waste a longer trip going there.
We drove downtown first thing Saturday morning and walked into the Santa Claus parade, complete with giant inflatable cartoon characters like the one we saw in NYC. I guess this is just an American thing.
As we were in Texas, though, it was giant inflatable characters plus cowboys. Cowboys and flags...
Cowgirls (is that even a word?) dancing with candy canes...
And cowboy marching bands. (There were a lot of marching bands.) We definitely knew we were in Texas at this point.
We had actually come downtown to go and see the Sixth Floor Museum, which is all about JFK and is located in the building that he was shot from. We couldn't take pictures inside (and honestly, it was mostly just reading signs), but here's the outside of the building. The square window next to all of the round ones is the one he was shot from.
There are crosses painted on the road outside that show exactly where JFK was shot. You can just see one in the bottom left of this picture, and the window that the shot was made from.
The "grassy knoll" - Stephen noted that he always thought from descriptions he'd heard that the grassy knoll was a hill some distance away, but really it was more like a median strip about 10m from the cars.
In the evening, we met up with Leo, a friend of ours who lives in Dallas. Despite being the self-proclaimed "worst Texan ever", he promised to take us out for BBQ and to see a rodeo!
First stop was Texan BBQ. It's actually quite confusing for non-locals when you get there - there was basically a big grill with a bunch of meat on it (no signs) and you have to say what you want and how much you want of it. I think I got a slice of brisket and some ribs, plus macaroni cheese and some blackberry cobbler for dessert. The whole thing was DELICIOUS.
Full to bursting with meat and more meat, it was time for our first rodeo. We wandered around the Stock Yards for a while to look around. The rodeo is a big tourist attraction there and happens every Friday and Saturday night, but apparently it's also a big thing with the locals - it's sort of like a trial circuit for people who want to move up in the ranks of rodeo sports, so they come down to participate or to support their friends or just to watch and drink beers. We went to pick up our pre-organized tickets, and joined the longest queue, assuming that it was for ticket pick-up - we were quickly informed that it was actually the queue for participants. I think the lack of cowboy hats gave us away.
The entire rodeo experience was surreal. We weren't really expecting to fit in, but the whole thing exceeded our wildest expectations. At the start, they said that people in the south had a bad rap for not being inclusive of people from other places and they didn't agree with that and wanted to make the night great for everyone - and then they said that everyone was welcome in Texas as long as they worshipped Jesus. Everyone stood while they played a song called "Proud to be an American" ("where at least I know I'm free"), while this girl slowly rode her horse around the ring carrying the flag, and then there was the hands on hearts national anthem.
After that, we got to the actual rodeo. When you think of rodeo, you probably think of bull-riding, but there were actually quite a few different things that happened. They started off with some bull-riding. Despite telling us that he was the worst Texan ever, our friend Leo knew a lot about rodeo. Apparently they make the bull buck by tying a rope around its flank (not its testicles - that's a myth), which basically pisses it off. Riders lodge their hands in under a strap tied around the front of the bull, and they have to stay on for 8 seconds to be awarded points.
The setup includes this scarecrow, who apparently hangs around in the middle of the arena to distract the bull and give it something to charge at once the rider is off. There are also some guys called "rodeo clowns" who wear actual clown outfits and distract the bull once the rider has come off. I don't think you could pay me to do their job - if there was a large crazy bull running around, I don't think I would be waving my arms at it trying to get it to charge me.
Here's some video I took of one of the actual bull rides - it was pretty terrifying actually. At the end, the bull charges the scarecrow, and you can hear the commentator say "Look out Nancy!" - he had been making jokes all night about Nancy Pelosi (the leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Reps and the highest-ranking female politican in American history). Things like "every morning I thank god when I wake up that I'm not Mr Pelosi and I don't wake up next to Nancy", and saying that they should replace the scarecrow with her and see how she went. It was pretty unbelievable.
Some of the other activities during the evening were for kids - they essentially lined up all of the children and let loose a lamb or a calf with a ribbon tied around its neck, and the first kid to get the ribbon won a prize. It was pretty hilarious - the kids ran around like crazy trying to catch these baby animals and having very little luck.
One of the other things they had, and this one actually seemed pretty barbaric to me, was calf roping. My understanding is that the guy starts off on his horse, and they let loose a calf from a gate at one end of the arena, and the guy from the same end a second later. The calf runs straight for a gate at the opposite end of the arena, and the guy has to rope it and get it tied up before it gets there. So he lassos it from his horse, trying to get the rope over its head, and then stops his horse and gets off . This pretty much stops the calf straight away - it seemed pretty cruel to the calf. After this, the horse walks backwards to keep pressure on the rope while the rider picks the calf up and flips it onto its side, and then he ties its legs together with ropes and waits for 6 seconds before it's classified as a win. We saw people doing all of this this in 15 seconds, which seemed ridiculously fast already, but apparently the world record is just over 6 seconds. The lady cowboys also did calf roping, but they only have to lasso the head, not bodyslam it to the ground or tie it.
I didn't get photos of all of the events, but there was also something called "team roping", where a team of two riders roped a calf with one roping the head and one somehow getting a rope around the calf's back feet while it was running - seems impossible but they did it.
It was a pretty surreal experience but we had great fun and definitely recommend it to anyone as something a bit different for a Saturday night :)
On our last day in South Dakota, we had a few hours to kill in the morning before our flight, so after a trip to the packed IHOP (a must for any US vacation), we decided to walk around and check out Rapid City's "City of Presidents" - a series of bronze statues of each American president placed on street corners in the city.
I wasn't sure exactly how enjoyable it would be, but it was actually a lot of fun trying to guess which president we were coming up to (especially considering that we know about 10 presidents total) and seeing the different ways that they were portrayed. There were a whole bunch of presidents that I've never even heard of, and apparently all sorts of drama that I wasn't aware of either. A surprisingly large number of presidents died in office (eight out of 44), and a surprising number look like cowboys.
Here are some of the statues we liked, in the order that we came to them (which has nothing to do with their historical order).
Franklin D Roosevelt. You can't see it from this angle, but there's a walking cane leaning on the back of the podium and you can see his leg braces through his pants. He's also got a pretty good grip on that podium. Died in office.
John F Kennedy. There were only two presidents portrayed with children, which was interesting. Also died in office.
Abraham Lincoln (the other president portrayed with a child). Also died in office.
Bill Clinton looks like a standup comedian for some reason.
Richard Nixon, looking appropriately shifty.
George W Bush making his famous thumbs up gesture, accompanied by his dog.
Thomas Jefferson. We couldn't work out if he was signing the Louisiana Purchase or writing the Declaration of Independence. Love the hair.
I wish I had taken more photos of the presidents as there were a bunch of funny ones and the way they were portrayed was often interesting - what they were carrying or wearing. It was definitely a fun way to spend a few hours before our flight.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 5. You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.
Crazy Horse Memorial is supposedly the Native American answer to Mt Rushmore. It's been in progress since 1948 but there isn't a whole lot done. We discovered why when the visitor center showed photos of the workers - one white guy and his family including his little kids. Apparently the government has offered millions of dollars in funding on multiple occasions, which has been turned down. The current estimated completion date is 2120.
The whole place was rather bizarre. The strangest part was the steep entry fee of $10 per person that only allowed you entry into the visitor center - there were further fees to be taken by bus to the base of the actual monument. To put it into context, Mt Rushmore carpark cost $10 for the car, and the national and state parks that we visited cost $10 each for the car as well. Visiting Crazy Horse felt like a rip off even before we saw that you had to pay more to get close to the monument.
A small model of what the memorial is supposed to eventually look like.
What the memorial looks like now from our paid vantage point (we didn't want to pay the extra to go closer). They've carved his face and the top of his arm. I don't recommend visiting Crazy Horse - there are too many things that don't add up in the monument's story and the visit left me feeling ripped off.
After Crazy Horse, we thought we'd take a detour to nearby Wyoming State to visit the Devil's Tower, which is the solidified core of an ancient volcano. It's about 400m tall and looks pretty bizarre in the context of the landscape. Devil's Tower was the first US National Monument, established in 1906.
From a little closer. The Native Americans call it Bear Lodge, and their story goes that a group of little girls were playing when some giant bears spotted them and chased them. The girls climbed onto a nearby rock and prayed to their Great Spirit who made the rock rise up so that the bears couldn't reach them. The deep channels in the side of the mountain were made by the bear's claws.
The base of the tower is a sea of boulders bigger than a person, fallen off in the past. That's me, in the white jacket, for a size comparison.
Apparently the tower is very popular with rock climbers. There were two making the climb while we were there. Here's a close up that shows them both - the guy in the orange jacket is the lower one, and there's also a girl above him and to the left a little in a green jacket. The sound carried back from the rock so we could hear them yelling to each other from the base of the monument with ease.
Not the view from the top (I'm not that crazy or skilled), but the view from the base of some of the surrounding land.
Stephen somehow managed to randomly snap a picture at the perfect time when the sun was setting and the light turned the tower pink and orange. 30 seconds later when he tried to take another photo, the rock was grey.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 4. You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 5.
Apparently Custer State Park would have been a National Park except that the state of South Dakota got in first. It's home to a herd of 1500 bison, plus a whole bunch of other animals.
To get to Custer State Park from Mt Rushmore, we took the "Needles Highway" (highway is a bit optimistic), which wound around in circles up and down various mountains and rock formations. It was beautiful and probably moreso because it was all covered in snow.
"Needles" comes from these rocky spines.
The road also went through various tunnels carved straight through the rock. One of them was barely big enough to get the car through, and you had to sound your horn to make sure no other cars met you halfway in the tunnel. In case you're wondering about the blue sky in this photo vs the grey one in the others - this one was taken 9 minutes earlier.
Once we were inside the State Park, the landscape changed dramatically to the open plains, and the animals were in abundance. There were deer everywhere.
More open rolling plains.
Custer State Park is known for its herd of "friendly burros" (donkeys), who beg food from passing tourists.
The little burro looks just like a little lamb! :)
They were so friendly that we had trouble leaving, as they kept trying to stick their noses inside the car.
We found the herd of bison. They are huge! (And tasty!)
We found a wedding party in the park too, that apparently wasn't expecting the -5 degree weather or snowy conditions. I really don't envy those bridesmaids.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 3. You can also read part 1, part 2, part 4 and part 5.
After the Badlands, we drove over to stay the night at a hotel overlooking Mt Rushmore.
The scenery changes quite a bit away from the Badlands.
Unfortunately, it was a fair bit colder at Mt Rushmore - so cold, in fact, that it was snowing, and the view of Mt Rushmore from our window looked like this. (That rock formation that you can see the outline of in the distance is Mt Rushmore.)
The next morning we woke up to snow on the ground and -5C. Ouch!
It wasn't snowing anymore, so you could see Mt Rushmore in the distance. Barely.
There were some birds wandering around in the morning that we initially thought were pheasants (as SD is famous for them), but later discovered are probably female wild turkeys.
Not only pheasants - some deer were wandering around the grounds as well. They don't seem to mind the cold.
And here it was - Mt Rushmore. It is even more ridiculous in person. Supposedly the monument is to the 4 presidents and what they did for America, which was founding (Washington), expanding (Jefferson purchased half of the country from the French in 1803 called the Louisiana Purchase), Theodore Roosevelt developing (Theodore Roosevelt promoted construction of the Panama Canal to help US trade), and preservation (Lincoln ended the Civil War).
The best part of going on a day when it snowed is that George Washington looks like he's worked up a bit of a sweat there. I didn't know but apparently the plan was for the monument to be much bigger and include their bodies as well - until they ran out of cash.
In case you're wondering, yes, it did really snow, and yes, it was pretty cold.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 2. You can also read part 1, part 3, part 4 and part 5.
