First Light Midwife: Traveling

Jackie and I have been planning a vacation for some time now. He has wanted to show me around the Black Hills for some years now, and show me at the time of the peak fall color, so we are going now.

The main place he has wanted to show me is Spearfish Canyon, just to the north of Rapid City, South Dakota, so that will be one of the places we visit.

We left yesterday morning, and drove north through west Oklahoma and western Kansas. There wasn't much to see, and we spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Garden City, Kansas. The whirlpool was so nice! We sure enjoyed it after driving for 9 hours.

Yesterday was mostly 67 to 70 degrees all day long, but all through Oklahoma, the sky was full of clouds that really looked like snow, of all things.

This morning, we started out at 40 degrees, and never got above 41, with rain pretty much since noon or so. About an hour north of Garden City, we stopped to look at some Pueblo Ruins, known as El Cuartelejo. Of course we didn't know what to expect, so it was an adventure! We followed signs for a time, then the trail got cold, and we knew it, so we turned around. We turned into a state park, hoping someone there could direct us to it, but no one was around. I guess there's no one who wants to camp out when it gets into the 30's at night. Go figure.

But we went just a little further, and found the signs again. The ruins were just a little square of four rooms, but it was cool to see something that was there more than 400 years ago. Cuartel means an army outpost in Spanish, so cuartelejo may mean the small army outpost. It was still around in 1604, 4 years before Jamestown. Too cool. Picture below.

Cute woman, huh?

Then, we continued on our journey, but were just a little down the road when we saw a whole herd of bison on our left! Jackie quickly stopped on the shoulder of the road, and scampered across the road to take pictures. There was a semi right behind us. As he passed us on the top of the hill, he hit the air horn, which startled the bison to run toward us! Jackie caught an awesome video of it!

So enjoy the video. We did!

We crossed into Nebraska sometime around noon. Then, between Ogallala and Lewellen, Nebraska, we passed a sod house! Jackie promptly turned around and we went to see what we could see. Turns out it was a sod house recreated in 1967, but it was neat to see it anyway. And it was built right where a house was on the old Oregon Trail, just west of Windlass Hill. We (you guessed it) took some pictures. It was raining lightly by this time; my new jacket sure was warm!