Trip Bozeman, Montana, and back again...

So who is this "corny" guy that is so befuddling to Beth?  And where were we?  More on this later...

As some of you know, we (Beth, Stephen, and I) just returned from 10-day long trip out to the western U.S.  I had a business meeting in Bozeman, Montana, and we decided to wrap that meeting around some family vacation time...Well, at least those who could go (Hope and Kenny had other commitments that kept them in Arkansas during this period).  The remainder of Bragg Family South piled into our minivan and headed north towards southwestern Minnesota, our first National Park/Monument/Historic Site on this trip.  Our destination was Pipestone National Monument, which preserves a cliff line made of a soft, pretty reddish stone that Native Americans carved into pipes (hence the name) and other objects.  Below, Stephen examines an outcrop of this rock while doing his Junior Ranger badge:

Beth and Stephen enjoyed climbing on the rock outcrops there:

The next day we briefly stopped at the "Corn Palace" in Mitchell, South Dakota (where the corn guy in the first picture was):

Although not apparent from the picture above, the Corn Palace is covered in dried corn parts that they've glued to this building.  We could not stay to wait for the Corn Palace to open, as we needed to keep moving towards our next destination--Badlands National Park.  En route to the Badlands, we stopped at a rest area that had this large sculpture as a tribute to the Native Americans who once--and still--occupied these plains:

The Badlands themselves were pretty impressive, with their erosion of the soft rock and sediments:

The Badlands can have some impressive colors, too:

After spending the night in Rapid City, South Dakota, on the edge of the Black Hills, we drove to Mt. Rushmore the first thing the next morning:

We also briefly visited Jewel Cave National Monument, but didn't wait the several hours before the next available slots in a caving tour.  Rather, we drove westward again into Wyoming to see Devil's Tower:

No, we didn't see any aliens (ala Close Encounters of the Third Kind), but the volcanic plug was pretty impressive.

The kids were also impressed with the many prairie dogs along the road leading into the park, including the very expectant female pictured above.  The next day we departed from the original plan to drive up into the nearby Bighorn Mountains to see several things, including patches of remaining snow and the gorgeous wildflowers found in the high alpine meadows of these mountains:

This picture does not do the colors or diversity of wildflowers justice!  Our main objective was to visit a prehistoric stone formation made by Native Americans called "Medicine Wheel":

Again, this photo does not do this site justice...  We drove out of the Bighorn Mountains westward, through Cody, Wyoming on our way to Yellowstone National Park:

We saw a few geothermal features, plus some wildlife and waterfalls, but didn't linger due to rainy weather, lots of tourists, and the need to get to Bozeman by that evening.  Bozeman is a college town on the edge of the mountains.  We had a day to kill before my meeting, so we went to the famous "Museum of the Rockies" on the Montana State University campus to see their impressive dinosaur displays:

We ended spending almost three days in Bozeman so I could attend my meeting.  After sitting through a last couple of talks on Friday morning, we started heading back towards Arkansas.  En route, we stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument:

This site monuments the place where George Custer and much of his Seventh Calvary was wiped out after attacking a large village of Native Americans.  Custer's grave (with the black marker below) and those of his men were the premiere attraction for years:

But in recent years the Native Americans who fought and died in this battle have also been featured, including this dramatic memorial:

and a number of markers showing where the Indians had fallen during this battle:

Driving across the plains, we saw numerous impressive storms, including the one below:

This storm we saw at a distance; earlier in the trip, we got caught in a hailstorm that actually left some small dents in our minivan!  We also saw lots of pronghorn antelope while driving across Wyoming:

We spent less time stopping, and more time driving back to Arkansas, but we did stop at a number of sites along the old Oregon Trail, including this spot where decades of wagons had worn a trail through the soft rock:

Nearby was a cliff face where early pioneers had carved their names and dates into the soft rock:

Unfortunately, it was hard to see many of these early dates, as much later vandals had also "tagged" the formation...  A little bit further down the highway was Fort Laramie, an important fort along the western trails:

Our final national park/monument on this trip was Scottsbluff, in western Nebraska:

We also made a stop for Stephen's sake...If you don't know, Stephen is quite a geography buff, and so we stopped at the marker below, which monuments the geographic center of the lower 48 states (it is in north-central Kansas):

Our final day consisted of one last hard push to drive home.  I will probably be tired from all the driving on this trip (over 3500 miles) for some time, but I think the kids will have gotten some good memories of this adventure--I know I did!!