Yesterday was action-packed! We left the beautiful Badlands of South Dakota and visited Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Devils Tower. All three monuments were so spectacular, I have never seen such big amazing sculptures and rock formations. After a walk at Devils Tower we stopped at the Arbuckle Lodge in Gillette, Wyoming. Our next stop is two exciting days in Yellowstone! I’m really looking forward to seeing the geysers like Old Faithful!
-Dalia
Enjoying a very peaceful, hot (right around 100F) and relatively flat and green trip through South Dakota on our way to camping in the Badlands tonight.
Noel says that the Badlands are supposed to look like Mars. We’ll see. 🙂
Meanwhile, in a move completely out of character for this risk-averse mom, we bought some fireworks as soon as we crossed into SD. We were assisted by some personable young women who seemed very excited about helping some firework-virgins from NY. You know, for Sophie’s 18th birthday and all. We don’t even know if we will be allowed set them off in the park. Hopefully we will come out unscathed from this whole experience.
Cool, just changed time zones again…
We have arrived in the Badlands, which remind me more of the Sinai than Mars, actually–this place is crazy beautiful. We are going to see fireworks in a nearby town soon.
Update: so not only did we see fireworks [and haven’t yet used our own], but we attended our first-ever rodeo, for the complete South Dakota experience. We were also lucky enough to witness a spectacular sunset over the Badlands, and then watched the fireworks with the rest of Interior, SD, pop. 390. People seem very nice and friendly here. (Not very diverse, but you can’t have everything. 😁). One young rider even let Sophie hop onto her horse for a ride!
Anyway, the temp had decreased from max of about 100F during the day to a very comfortable 76F or so in the evening, perfect for rodeo watching, fireworks, and for sleeping in tents. I think this was a pretty fantastic way to celebrate Sophie’s 18th birthday. She’s not a fan of camping, but it all turned out okay.
Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse were amazing. We walked around both centers, saw a film at Rushmore, and at Crazy Horse watched a demo of Lakota hoop dance which I participated in. (I know, surprise!). Finally, we drove to Wyoming to hike at Devil’s Tower, and we are staying in Wyoming tonight. What a day!!!
Yesterday we crossed the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, crossed Iowa, gained an hour into CDT, and arrived in Omaha NE. Saw lots of corn and wind turbines.
Last night Our dear friends Keith, Pat and my Colorado ski buddies “the bagel boys” (and spouses) feted us and helped celebrate Sophie’ 18th birthday in grand style. There was great food at Biaggi’s followed by a party at Tom and Sue’s beautiful home, complete with epic sing-along with piano, guitars and ukes. I’ll add pix to this post as soon as time permits. Suffice it to say that the 4 of us had a grand time. I think the girls want to join our next ski trip. Thanks so much Keith et al!!!
Happy Birthday Sophie!!!
Hi, everyone! Relaxing by the pool and finally starting to feel like myself again after an absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully exhausting Csipke Tabor, a little annual nirvana of Hungarian friends, folk music, and folk dance near Brooklyn, Michigan. I’m starting to get caught up on sleep and energy after having stayed up until 2-4am most nights for a week, and dancing and singing all day to boot. Even my aching knees are almost back to normal.
The pics below are in reverse order–I’ll fix everything later from a larger screen and with an internet connection
Chicago was great, as Noel reported. Very fun city just to walk around in. The architecture is amazing: such a contrast between the old buildings and the new architecture, beautiful parks, flowers, and monuments, great food, and crazy drivers and pedestrians. (Yes, crazier than the ones in NYC. And New York pizza is still the best.) We walked down to the beach at Lake Michigan, right in the city, which was completely weird for us. It feels just like an ocean, with sand, birds, etc., but of course, without the stickiness of salt water. Sophie especially was blown away by the fresh water.
We stayed at the beautiful James Hotel in the middle of the city, which was quite a treat after being at camp all week.
Another highlight of our visit was the amazing and incomparable Art Institute of Chicago. I have a minor in Art History, and it was amazing seeing so many original works of art that I had studied about over 30 yrs ago.
Now we are staying in an absolutely sweet place (Stoney Creek Hotel) in Moline, and we plan to leave soon across Iowa, heading to Omaha for dining, making music, and hanging with friends tonight. I hope there will be fireworks somewhere to start celebrating Sophie’s 18th bday (7/4). After that, we head for the Badlands in SD!
We just arrived in Moline! Chicago was awesome I loved the art institute so much! I got a paint pallette key chain. I loved the hotel we stayed in, the James it was so bougie. The trip is going great so far. We went to an awesome game today called Escape the Room and then we went to the spy bar for lunch I had the best bean burger in the whole world and we pretended we were secret agents on a mission. Then we listened to The Endless River album by Pink Floyd in the car. The hotel we are staying in here is very nice. We watched the sun set and went salsa dancing and desert searching and ended up at TGIFriday’s! Trouble by Cage the Elephant came on the radio inside I love this song. Today was a lot of fun. Tomorrow is pretty free so we will have time to explore. We can walk along the Mississippi River here and there are beautiful parks. It’s very nice here and I’m excited for Omaha tomorrow! -Dalia
Hungarian dance camp turned out wonderfully for each of us. Dalia continued to enjoy the dance and singing classes while hanging out and becoming friends with one of the few kids her age. This year the camp had about 100 adults and 60 kids, Sophie spent much time with the younger ones solving jigsaw puzzles and collecting rocks;she also learned and performed several tunes on accordion. Judy and I were both thrilled with the dancing and singing and grateful that our bodies survived the week😀 We had one hot muggy day and one evening of heavy rain but otherwise were blessed with cool days perfect for strenuous (for us) exercise. Late night parties are Judy’s forte. She danced and partied til 2 most nights. I went to bed by 1 most nights, and Dalia stayed up until dawn the last night.
We brought 4 types of artisanal cheese made by friends Jonathan and Nina (cowsoutside.com) and shared it at midnight snack one night, as we’ve done before. We got lots of appreciation for that. Other high points were the gorgeous live music sets and late night jams, berry picking and eating and hanging with friends.. Saxophone and cymbalom is my new favorite combo!
We repacked the car and headed out Saturday by noon.