South Dakota - by Ally

South Dakota and The Black Hill

Ally Bennion

Wow South Dakota!! These places seem like  foreign countries compared to little Arroyo Grande. There are buffalo, geysers, and flat grass lands, something I would never see back home. Just a few days ago while I was in the car with my family I said out loud, “Do people actually live here, I mean they actually live their lives here? It has been eye opening that people live their lives in all different kinds of places. 

On the trip to South Dakota, we stopped off at The Battle of Little Bighorn. It was full of history that seemed to come alive. There were hills upon rolling hills of yellow grass, nothing else around. It was crazy to imagine that there was a full blown battle here. Indians on horse back with their bows cocked and arrows flying,  while yelling out battle cries. Men in blue uniforms flat on the ground using the dead horses as bunkers. The crack, snap, boom of guns and cannons firing. wow! What a scene that would be. My family and I walked along the hills and found a black plaque in the middle of the field. It was a marking of were General Custer fell and died.

The spot where General Custer died during battle. 

We saw many things while in South Dakota . The most stunning was Mt. Rushmore. It was flat out amazing. The mountain towered high through the trees. At first it didn’t look like much but you get around the bend the stone faces form from the rock; General George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. While we were walking on a boardwalk around the mountain, the kids and I found something SO neat. Part of National Treasure 2 was filmed here! Then the rest of the trip was filled with talking about the movie, while my mom tried to divert the conversation to the history that was put into the Mount Rushmore monument.

Speaks for its self ;-)

The spot where they filmed National Treasure- we are impersonating a scene in the movie.

I learned that Mt. Rushmore is not the only sculpture made out of rock in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There is also one that dwarfs Mount Rushmore by all means. It stands 563 feet high and a width of 307 feet, this is the massive Crazy Horse.  Crazy Horse is the indian who killed General Custer in The Battle of Little Bighorn. Unfortunately, it is not finished yet after 64 years of working on. Only the head and arm of the indian has been carved. It is all non federally funded, all the money to work on it comes from admissions . They had a small museum filled with artifacts of the indians and it was a great thing to learn more about the people who lived here in this country before us.

A model of what it will look like when completed , in front of the actual structure in the back ground

Badlands National Park 

Then there are the Badlands. This vast landscape is dominated with tall mountains and rolling hills. These hills are striped with red lines and even though they are jagged the stripe always seems to keep strate. Bighorn goats and prairie dog are the animals you find here, and the plants are all just yellow grass. It looked to me like the backdrop to a picture of a dinosaur.

We drove through that...

Badlands National Park

Lastly we went to the annual Buffalo Round-Up. These were real cowboys folkes! They rode on their horses and cracked their whips to round up the herds of buffalo. The buffalo stampeded  as fast as they could down a hill and picked up dust. It was an overall thriller to see this action take place.

Buffalo Round Up  

My thoughts on current life-

School: Every Monday and Wednesday Shelby and I wake up by six to start classes. We are taking online live classes. At first it was quite challenging learning how to be in a virtual classroom and there were glitches in the system. Very frustrating. I have had to work hard at getting used to the new set up. Learning to be flexible has been a key component since we have to do classes where ever we can find Wifi . That may be in the lodge, local (loud) coffee shop , or just in the car.  But it is encouraging to know that I am doing well in my classes so far.

Exploring: It is kind of hard to coordinate school with exploring. I have to make sure I have enough time to finish my homework before we go out. I work extra hard with this, but it pays off when we get to see things and play. Exploring is such a fun thing to do with the family. We get to zip around in our car and go see new places with our radio up and our windows down. Just embracing the world as it is. It is a nice relief after being cooped up and glued to the screen of my computer for classes.

Living in the RV: I have the bottom bunk that is pretty much it. There is not much space in the RV and there is little space to call yours. The bathroom is almost always occupied and it is hard brush my hair, or put my contacts in without someone squashed along in with me. It has been a learning curve for us to share space, but it is going smoothly and we have all learned to adjust to it.